on getting older

I turn nineteen in seventeen days.
This somewhat blows my mind. Nineteen isn't one of the important birthdays, but it's the last teenage birthday I'll have, which is very weird. I'm not sure I want to grow out of teenage life.
Luckily, I've heard that the early twenties are pretty fun too, and that society is allowing us to act less and less mature at older ages as time goes on. Thanks, society!

Yesterday Cara and I were sitting in Starbucks writing, and I pulled up my old secret blog for inspiration (Raymond Carver said that autobiographical stuff can still be fiction if you play with it enough, I swear!).

It turns out, I was a total crazy person in ninth grade. Of course, this should surprise exactly no one, especially if you knew me in ninth grade, but I was taken aback by some of the things I was willing to say on the internet.

• "i've decided to develop multiple personality disorder. or maybe not DISORDER, but habit."
• "he's such a GUY thoughhhhhhh"
• "UGH WHO IS THIS GIRL? WHY DOES SHE EXIST? i naturally friended her after that."
• "i wish i were allowed to be a badass slacker in a cool way. but no."
• "and i ask X for his number and he gives me his number, email address, picture, and clever nickname. and possibly even social security number. lovely."
• "what i wore today- it's a metaphor i swear"
• "4 girls, 1 guy, 1 couch. It was quite a party."
• "I think I'm going to invent my own religion. It will be called... wisdom."

I'm pretty sure I was serious about all of these things. Also, I was so boy-crazy back in the day (these particular days being mostly from the second half of freshman year). They say you grow out of that too but I'm not so sure.

Love always,
Clara

um, hi.

Let me tell you some facts about myself.

• I have brought no less than eight pairs of sunglasses to college.
• I have no idea what the fuck we talk about in Modern Culture and Media
• Somehow it looks like everyone has more work than me.
• I can't listen to songs on repeat. It ruins it. (Which is why I'm so OCD about my mix CDs)
• I'm actually OCD about a lot of things including: my rug being flat, my statistics on last.fm, where I sit in economics (mostly because it's caused problems in the past), and my ongoing scrabble games with my parents.
• Yeah, I play scrabble with my parents. I'm beating my dad at the moment.
• I get underestimated a lot.
• I have more scarves in my possession than some people have pants.
• I'm still figuring out the social-interaction thing.
• I'm afraid I'm often nostalgic for things that never existed.
• I'm allergic to nickel. This interferes with my love of cheap jewelry, or my unwillingness to spend more than $15 on a watch.
• Actually, I'm usually unwilling to spend more than $15 on anything at all, but somehow money still seems to fly away as soon as I get my hands on it.
• I name inanimate objects.
• I'm very protective of my music tastes. Some things are sacred, right?
• I wish I had more "awesome thrift store finds." So far, I have an oversized Ralph Lauren sweater, and an oversized polo shirt. I also had a very long pearl necklace that I got at a flea market in Neuchatel. For whatever reason, the only things that appeal to me in thrift stores are larger-than-usual prep staples.
• I miss the days when Death Cab for Cutie seemed to know everything about me.
• I make weird faces in pictures, because I'm fairly certain I'm going to end up looking weird anyway, and I'd rather it be on purpose.

I felt like I hadn't blogged anything substantial today.

This feels substantial now.

Good.

Love always,

Clara

kinky

Mom: CLARA WHERE ARE YOU?

Me: Dad's office

[she enters]

Mom: Are you doing your physics?

Me: ... no...

Mom: What are you doing?

Me: It's a... I'm reading... you're too old, you wouldn't get it.

Mom: What?

Me: It's this blog where this girl re-reads Baby Sitters' Club books and talks about what everyone was wearing.

Mom: You're right, I don't get it.

Later...

Mom: You want me to ask them to set up a table in front of the fireplace?

Me: What? Why?

Mom: I don't know. It seemed like a kinky place to have dinner.

Me: *dies*

Edit because this thought doesn't deserve its own post- I was clicking through a blog (what else is new?) and this blog* has pictures of people on it. And in one of these pictures, a girl is wearing a shirt that I OWN. I saw it and got inexplicably really excited. I wanted to like, find a way to contact her, so that I could say "You and I have vaguely similar taste and both shopped at Target in 2007!"
Then I realized this was irrational.
But do you ever notice we get really excited when we have the same thing as someone else? I mean, I'm sure Target-brand made thousands of my navy blue waffle shirt that buttons down halfway, and there are thousands of people who bought them, and it's not like we should all get together and start a club... but what if we did?
That would be the greatest facebook group ever-

People who have THIS SHIRT.
It would be hard to find people to join though. Somehow, most of us only have one or two articles of clothing in common with our friends, or even people we know. So you couldn't really invite your friends to the facebook group. You would just have to hope.

I like the idea of it, for some reason.

*Okay, vaguely embarrassing confession: The blog I was reading is "Chicks with Stubbed Toes Making Sex Faces"... which explains the picture, doesn't it?

Love always,
Clara

That gosh darn creative impulse.

I sort of live in fear that one day it will not be important to me to blog. I'm afraid that if/when that day comes, I will have lost a part of myself.
But I don't think that's true, so much, right now.

I looked at my bookmarks bar and saw the 'Create Post' link that I use to get here, to this post-creating box that I'm looking at. I saw it and thought "Oh, I should, but I have nothing to say."
And I asked myself, why not?
And myself answered, "I've already been creative TWICE today"
[Note- the side of me in quotation marks is the subconscious bit. Just FYI]

It's true! I had art class, in which I spent an hour trying to sketch Vivian in charcoal (which, by the way, Vivian, is hard. Why do we all sit in such awkward positions when we're hanging out with esuds? Daphna's hiding her chin behind her arm which makes my drawing of her look really super awkward too).
And then, when I came home, I was playing with dad's guitar and I wrote a song. A pretty good one, too, if you ask me, and that actually does mean a lot because (SECRET ON THE INTERNET ALERT!) I do this all the time. But usually I end up putting the guitar down thinking "wow, that was crap"
This time, I thought "Hey, that was pretty sweet. I need to write another verse, but I like where it's going"

Once I get a little further with it, I'll put some version up here. Not yet. It's in its infancy.

Anyway, I'd had two bursts of creativity today and I was afraid I was out of juice. But then I realized that in the course of contemplating this, I'd written a hypothetical blog post in my head. It occurred to me that this writing thing is the kind of curse I'll probably be stuck with for the rest of my life, in some form.
Hm... I don't mind.

Love always,
Clara

Brought down to earth by a facebook quiz

I have always been pretentious. I think my parents made me that way by teaching me to read before anyone else, so I could feel like the superior-and-unique-and-brilliant one in preschool.

That is the prelude to the story I am about to tell.

Today, (or rather, just now) I was poking around facebook. And I saw on my news feed, "Kayla has taken the quiz 'What stereotype do you fit?' with the result Cheerleader"

And I thought to myself, "Ah, I will take this quiz"

... And my inner self thought to my(inner)self, "Ah, I will take this quiz and get a super cool result that is different from anyone else's in an intellectual and creative way, because I am special, and I live in a world of less interesting and creative people"

But don't tell anyone that.

So I took the quiz. And my result? Cheerleader. Not too unexpected I guess... I figured it was this quiz's way of saying "nice person" (as opposed to the result "Prep/Jock" which basically means "mean person").

But the results page, like most facebook quiz result pages, showed me the outcomes of several of my facebook friends. And I scroll through and realize the rest of my facebook friends are 80% Hipsters, 15% Nerd, and 5% Loner.

CONTRARY TO MY LONG-ESTABLISHED BELIEFS, I AM A LONE CHEERLEADER IN A SEA OF HIPSTERS.

How did that happen?

Speaking of facebook, I just uploaded an album of pictures I found from freshman trip. If anyone has forgotten exactly how awkward we were back then, I suggest you check it out.

And speaking of pictures, I got a new camera today! And it's a PowerShot SD780 and it's amazing and I'm kind of in love.

And speaking of incest... never mind.

Also, I did bake this blog a birthday brownie, and I filmed myself doing it, so that video will be up in the next four days. But tomorrow is very busy.

Love always,
Clara

"What? You don't like glitter?"

Real conversation from the long drive home yesterday-

Grace: What happened to your nails??

Me: I painted them. With glitter!

I did.

Also, and you didn't hear this from me, I have heard that the flu outbreak at nerd camp was not the usual flu.

It was... a sort of flu that is known to be more contagious among teenagers... if you know what I mean.

Hm... That would make sense, seeing as 40-50 kids were infected in like, a week.

I'm curious as to whether that's a secret. It might be.

Love always,
Clara

I love having free blocks

I had less than two hours of classes today.

Think about that.

I read a great Atlantic article on introverts.

(via Julia Allison)

It got me thinking about the way I think. I'm a person who likes to reflect. I've called it my nostalgic predisposition before, but that's not quite it. 

Definitely a component of my introversion though. Which is why I blog.

It's kind of a paradox. It might seem that since I do so much rambling over here, it means that I'm extroverted and want to make noise for the sake of it.

Not quite the case. I mean, I do like to make noise. I know this about myself.

But the reason I blog is more something like this:

I used to do a lot of my existing inside my head, if you know what I mean. I had a theory freshman year that if I went a whole day without speaking, no one would notice. Not that I was quiet, I just didn't ever share anything of value.

Or okay, I guess I must have, but this was at the beginning that I developed this theory and I don't know, fourteen year old girls have feeble self-esteems.

Point is, I lived inside my head. And I blogged for myself only.

I would try to put myself out there into the world, but I've come to accept the fact that I'm not very good at that.

Thus, the next rational step is try to put the world inside my head.

World, welcome to my head.

Blogging, ironically, might be the biggest indicator of my introversion. This is the way I like to communicate my thoughts- alone. But to people.

I'm an introvert who also loves the spotlight. My god. I need to start making sense, and soon.

Love always,
Clara

P.S. My royal Estonian ancestry was written up in the Washington Post today. It's true, bitchessss.

A moment when Clara talks about herself

... in a slightly self-pitying and overdramatic way, because she only has 30 more days of being a sixteen year old girl.

So I was walking to chorus today (or rather, to book fair before chorus. I got three books for a dollar. It's fantastic) and I saw a bunch of freshmen, guys and girls, playing soccer on the quad. And they were having so much fun and I thought (or rather, said, aloud but quietly, because [secret alert!] I talk to myself quite regularly), "My god, I wish I were a freshman".

Then I looked in the other direction and saw a super cool bunch of sophomores chilling by this really great tree. These particular sophomores already know how much I admire that- they've got it figured out. If you have a sweet tree and people to chill with under it, you're essentially set. And I saw them and thought/said "Or a sophomore"

And then I thought about everything and thought (really, this time), "or anyone other than myself".

I'm not sure where that came from.

Except that I sense a great deal of unhappiness within my grade around now. Lots of projects and things, heightened awareness of this schism between ourselves and the faculty, etc, are making us very frustrated.

Like, example, today at lunch we had a pretty spirited debate about the acceptability of confiscating hats on a free dress day.

The issue, I'm pretty sure, wasn't actually hat-taking but (at least in my mind) the whole concept that so much of our lives is at the whim of a small bunch of adults. If they tell us to do something, we don't have many options.

And so why would I rather be another junior as opposed to myself? I've yet to figure that one out. Maybe I'm just done with it for a while.

That thought pretty rapidly dissolved, actually, when my mom came home and told me about her riveting experience at the White House. At that point I thought, "Wow, my life really is pretty cool"

Regardless of anything, spring break cannot come soon enough. Two days. Two days. It's like, a mantra.

Love always,

Clara

Secret of the dy

I hte my mom's computer becuse it cn't type the letter 'a' unless you hit the key relly hrd. But it's kind of stisfying knowing mine doesn't do tht.

Love always,
Clara

Thoughts on Secrets

The other night Isabella told me to tell her a secret. I almost wanted to get my laptop, pull up my blog, and say 'read'.

I don't have many secrets that I can keep. I can keep other people's secrets pretty well. My own, not so much. I don't see the point.

I have a vivid memory of this conversation in third grade

Me: *says something to myself*

3rd grade crush: Are you talking to yourself?

Me: ...... yes....

3rd grade crush: *gives me a really weird look*

Me: *turns approximately the color of a tomato*

Secret of the day: I talk to myself all the time.

It was at that point I realized it probably wasn't normal to talk to myself, and should try to keep it to a minimum. It's really hard though.

It's that impulse to write. To document. To remember. I remember things better if I can say them out loud. Speaking, writing, it assigns a certain chronology to things that could have bounced around in my mind, orderless, for days.

Love always,
Clara

Secret of the day

Homework? What homework?

I did none tonight. Not that I wasn't assigned any, I just didn't do it.

Love always,
Clara

Secret of the day

I used to have an irrational fear of glue guns. Not that I would burn myself, as I was quite confident in my handling skills, but that I would leave one plugged in and burn the house down, killing my family and destroying everything that was dear to us.

Love always,
Clara

BIG HUGE SECRET

I'm a little nervous about putting this next secret on the internet.

But I have vowed to be 100% honest with you, dear random internet reader or close friend of mine, either or.

Secret of the day:

I don't actually have a headache. I made that up.

Love always,
Clara

Family parties

Two parties tonight. With the lovely parents.

At the first, I knew no one. It was a scene out of gossip girl, with the exceedingly attractive and sophisticated high school kids from the all-boys' and all-girls' schools being corrupt, and of course there's the mysterious girl who's "a family friend". I'd like to think I was mysterious. It's possible I was just awkward.

At the second, I had heard everyone's name in stories of my mom's adolescence. So that was cool, putting the pieces together. My step-uncle steve is a creeper. It was funny, all of it.

Secret of the day:

I actually haven't started my homework at all. I've been conveniently forgetting about it all break. Tomorrow is the last day of national novel writing month. I'm kind of half-screwed.

Love always,
Clara

Friday

I'm so tired.

We went shopping this morning. Mom, aunt Gail, and I. It was epic.

Secret of the day:

My second (third?) cousins are kind of weirder than I had imagined they would be.

Love always,
Clara

thanksgiving secret

I see way more of my dad in myself than of my mom, but I see a lot of my mom's sister Gail in there too... I'd rather be like my dad.

Love always,
Clara

Secret of the day

I was kind of mean to Linda today, and implied that my uterus was going to explode.

Love always,
Clara

Secret of the tuesday before thanksgiving

Although I am a vegetarian, I make exceptions.

I intend to eat one bite of turkey at each thanksgiving dinner I attend this week.

Love always,
Clara

Secrets Secrets

Secret of the day:

I was speeding on the way home. It took me 25 minutes. I didn't regret it.

Love always,
Clara

Secret of the day

Yes, this will be a daily feature.

And the secret of the day for thursday, although I didn't have an opportunity to post it, was:

Cath hid Will's jacket.

Friday and Saturday didn't have any obvious secrets that I can think to post, because I wasn't paying attention.

Secret of sunday:

I actually miss Model Congress.

Love always,
Clara