Typist.

Here are somethings I have said over Skype chat when I wasn’t feeling well…

• I can never time. therefore you are mes. {this was supposed to be – “I can never type, therefore you are me.”}
• My brain is squashed flat like a pancake gym.
• ommy nom nommy.
• My head is smacking against the sides of my gym brain skullface.
• I need foods like yeah seriously foods will make me normalsauce.
• I eat potatoes so my heart no go plooey and explodes.
• Right we are like peanut butter and peanut butter’s best friend. like peanut butter and regular butter? {this after Becca told me – “you and english are awesome together” – and I know peanut butter’s best friend is supposed to be jelly but I don’t like PB&Js.}
• what epsidieso? **epsidis. GOSH. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. {translation: “what episode?”}
• apparently there is no end to the amount of times I can see ane psidies of that show. {translation: “apparently there is no end to the amount of times I can see any episodes of that show.”} {and yes, I really do type this bad}

Hey, BoBBB

That’s right, folks, it’s the best of bahbahbecca. Oh, Twitter, we love you. Oh, and these are ALL from @bahbahbecca. All of them. FOLLOW HER.

• I have a major crush on Taylor Lautner. I’ve accepted and embraced this fact.
• @ninjajordyn Well your 13 year old cousin has good taste in men.
• Who has two thumbs and hates John Dewey? THIS GIRL.
• Oh and I also still hear the voice in my head when I said “Babies! AHHHHH!’ I just love babies, who doesn’t?
• Catch Phrase says: Mount Everest. I say: The place where the president’s faces are carved. FAIL.
• @ninjajordyn Thank you. I know college has done me good. =)
• @ninjajordyn You want a pickle? Whatttt?
• @ninjajordyn BABIES! YAY!
• Apparently I must not think about you if I’m over you. F that. I’m going to think about you anyways and loathe myself simultaneously.
• When texting my sister I said “Hello there sibling.” I’m cool.
• What if I just dropped out of college and became a stripper? I feel like that’d be productive.
• Sister: How do you feel? Me: Like crap, but thanks for asking Sister: Stop being sick, you’re not allowed to go to the hospital. Not cool.
• Every time it tells me that my tweet failed to sent I get very angry at twhirl. Two seconds later after it sent I’m back to loving it.
• @ninjajordyn Suck it up cupcake. When you’re still sick two weeks from now then we can talk lol.
• My roommate just whispered in a very weird voice “I need to wash my body.” Crazyyy stuff going down in Ponce.
• @koriannespeaks So holy crap on a cracker Terri is crazycakes/wackadoodle/crazy nutballs.
• I always make an effort to say funny shit via twitter, it has finally paid off because I have been favorited. haha.
• Pretzels. They are saving my life.
• @jordynface I love how I get the full experience of your thought process although you’re perfectly capable to edit it to make it less crazy.
• This woman needs to stop working at Sheets & Things and get a real job. Then she can complain about not having money. #glee
• @jordynface Sometimes you talk like yoda.
• @jordynface I don’t see the box.
• @jordynface I found the box.
• I’m making Colleen’s pants vibrate by updating twitter right now.
• I just saw a sign that says “Old Beach Rd” and the sign under it says “No Beach Access.”

School and Haikus

Oh dear, universe.

I don’t even know what to blog about. I’m stuck.

I’m tired.

I’m really tired. I’m really not looking forward to school today. Haven’t been in in weeeeks (two. maybe one and a half?) and I’m a little scared of going back. One of my professors already told me he dropped me (and I’m like askdhfduaioudkjd dude, I told you I was sick and I told you I was going to meet with my pediatric cardiologist and I told you I have a stupid 504 form and I AM A MASTER AT MAKING UP WORK, PLEASE DON’T DROP ME!) (rant over.) and I’m a little worried about my other professors dropping me too. Or, you know, the very real possibility that I might now fail my classes.

can.not.fail.omg.

HAIKUS! I have more to write still, but…

Monopoly is
only a game unless you
aren’t the one winning.

This is a haiku.
It’s about chocolate milk.
Yum, chocolate milk.

Medical dramas:
they make hospitals seem cool.
Hospitals aren’t cool.

I know. I still have more to write. I need to do haikus on the following topics (these are from the long list of topics I suggested for Khy’s research paper…)

Star Trek
The Beatles
Kleptomaniacs or Polygamy
Morse Code
Loch Ness Monster
Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Conversation I Just Had

Dad: Aaah.
Me: What are we aaahing?
Dad: You cleaned the kitchen.
Me: …you were actually here.
Dad: Really?
Me: Yeah.
Dad: Did not pay any attention.

In other news, I’m a couple thousand words behind in Nanowrimo, I’m almost done watching ALL of Arrested Development, I’m still not loving the show Chuck but I continue to watch it in the background of my writing time, and this article is meeping hilarious. Wow. That was bad even for me.

CLUB SAUCE!!

My Dream Self

The girl in my dream is all bones and smiling and laughing and evil.

Somehow I know she is evil, though she’s laughing with me. I don’t know what we’re laughing at. I’m not sure what’s funny.

The boys in the corner are tall and lanky and she sees me looking at one of them and she snaps at me. Words that don’t make any sense, that I know are lies. Dream lies.

My dream self seems to know this girl and be irritated with this girl who lies and is evil. My dream self knows she is lying but the lies bother her just in case. Because they might not be lies. My dream self wants them to be lies though, and in dream world sometimes wanting something makes it so.

I don’t know if wanting it makes it so in this dream because we don’t get that far.

My dream self grabs her green purse (since when do I have a green purse?) and hits the lying girl with it (since when do I hit people?) and then runs out of the train car (what?) and runs down the dirt road. She runs into the boy, the one she was looking at, and she hits him with her purse too and he starts to say something and she doesn’t listen. My dream self keeps running and the boy disappears, turning invisible. (My dream self knows this because she has eyes in the back of her head.)

Dream self is angry and everything is the same.

———————————————————————

The city in my dream is made of dirt and is in Utah. (I don’t know why Utah – a state I’ve never even been to.) It’s ran by an evil masterminded dictator who wants us to be buried until further notice.

I don’t know how it works, but somehow the city is buried and abandoned for years and years and everyone is asleep but somehow my dream self isn’t and my dream self is trying to save everyone because we are all dying.

Well. Not dying. More like fading into nothing. And my dream self goes to the evil mastermind dictator and talks to him and yells at him. My dream self locks him in a tiny little dungeon and finds the panel with the buttons to wake up the city.

My dream self wakes up the city made of dirt and everyone gets up and looks around and the city is alone and nothing else exists beyond the city and my dream self is looking for somebody, somebody specific, and when she finds him somehow the dream changes and there is no dirt city there is just a spaceship.

———————————————————————

In my dream I get fired because I can’t cover my friend’s shift and my manager is a fat woman who hates me. She is so fat she can’t get out of her chair. And the store I work at is made of glass.

My dream self yells at the fat woman and runs to my house, which is both in California and Arizona, and the car belonging to my dream self is full of water and soaked and to dry it out my dad fills it with a layer of snow.

It seems counterintuitive to my dream self, but she says nothing because maybe it will work.

Then my dream self misses the book event.

 

Conclusion: I belong in a mental facility.

Another Letter to This Place

It’s Thursday, last week.

I’m driving in my car to Gayle Forman’s event for If I Stay. I’ve left school early, ditched my last class, am wearing that black dress that I think is nice enough to wear everywhere, all the time. I’m winding down a California interstate with Lady Gaga blaring to keep myself awake.

I didn’t sleep much the night before.

California is all civilization and buildings and money and glamour (real or imagined) and sun and surf and “dude” and “like” and then suddenly… it’s not. Suddenly it’s just me and the air, the only break in the outdoors being the freeway I’m driving on. Mountains, hills, the hesitant neither-desert-nor-tropics landscape surrounding me.

Wow, I think, California is beautiful.

And I pause. Turn down the music. Repeat the phrase in my mind, turning it over like a shiny new book I’m contemplating buying.

California is beautiful.

The truth of the statement is undeniable, but unbelievable, even as I repeat it slowly, accepting it. Trying out this new reality, this new bit of truth in my life.

I feel calm then, as it washes over me. I am driving to a book event, listening to Lady Gaga, and California is beautiful. And for an instant there is this surge of love in me. A love for California. This state. This weird, wacky, wicked state.

I don’t know if I hate you anymore, I tell California in my mind, hoping hesitantly to make amends with my reluctant state.

So here it is. Another letter to California.

Dear California, I begin, unsure of the “Dear” at the beginning. It seems so formal. But then, I don’t know, yet, if I’m comfortable enough to not be formal with California.

I don’t know if I hate you anymore. You are beautiful, there’s no denying that. Once you get out of the cities and the light and the fake and the “it” that you tend to exude, you really are a beautiful place. A place I can understand loving. A place I love, in a way.

But I can’t love you 100%, I can’t attach myself to you so fully like everyone else does. You’ve taken so much from me. It took everything I had, and a lot I didn’t realize I had, to be myself here. To feel alright. To smile inside. To not be a total freaked-out mess.

I don’t need to tell you everything you did, everything that happened with or without your consent. You already know. 

I might never not hate you, just a little, somewhere small and hidden, for that.

But there’s something else too. I do love you. Honest I do. If you strip away everything I hate, there’s this little part of you that’s honest. The part I saw driving through to the book event. The part where nothing’s glitz and nothing’s glam and nothing (and nobody) is fake. The part where nobody lives because there is no “it”. No palm trees, no ski slopes, no sand dunes. Just peace. There’s that part, and I think it’s honest, and it draws me in.

I don’t know how I beat you – the parts of you I hate so much, I mean – and I’m not even sure that I’m done beating you. There are still times, let’s be honest, that I want to recoil. I won’t get into those times. But the point is that I don’t. I keep going. And somewhere along the line all that going, it made me realize things I was too angry to see before.

I’m not saying I want to live here, want to stay here. 

I’m not saying everything’s great between us.

I can’t forgive you completely like I could a flesh-and-blood person because you, dear California, are just a state. Some arbitrary borders, a collection of stereotypes and realities and stereotypes that are realities. You are an abstract. You can’t make things right. 

I’m not saying whatever it is you want me to or everyone else wants me to or I want to be able to. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fully say those things. Everything’s too complicated. 

I am saying… I kind of like you. You’re alright.

Sincerely,

Jordyn

Possibly?

I get the sense that I overthink more than most people do.

…that is all.

I Have A Fascination With Names

I need a writing prompt. I have no idea what to blog about.

Oh. Okay, I’ll talk about how I bought a baby name book yesterday. Coolest baby name book ever, too. See, I love names. I’m somewhat fascinated/obsessed with them and for this reason I love baby name books. (Another reason: my characters always need names.)

But, um, I’m nineteen. And I look quite a bit younger. And this all makes it very awkward buying baby name books. (How many baby names have I bought? I don’t know. I currently have two but I know I’ve bought more before that ended up lost or thrown out.) One time I went to the register with a HUMONGOUS baby name book, one of those ones that’s basically the encyclopedia of baby names? Yeah, I went to the register with that and three YA novels.

That says, I’m old enough to have a baby but not old enough to read grown up books!

And yesterday I went up to the register with a (completely awesome) baby name book, notebook, and book called Stuff You Should Have Learned At School.

That says, I’m dropping out of school to have my baby, so I need this other book to not become an idiot.

So anyway. I go up to the register, the Barnes & Noble lady (who is pretty nice; I’ve talked to her before) rings up my stuff. Then she holds up the naming book and asks, “And is this book for you?”

Okay. Yes. Technically the book is for me. I’m not planning on giving Cool Names for Babies as a gift to anyone (although: note to self, weren’t you supposed to buy a baby gift like A LONG time ago? c’mon. the baby’s like two or three months old by now), but I’m also not pregnant.

So I told her I write and need character names. Which is completely true but come on, that’s a pretty weird answer, right? I mean who goes and buys baby name books for their characters? Am I a complete abnormality? Do any of you other writers ever do this or am I the only one?

And while we’re on the subject of names, despite the fact that I think my parents gave me the absolute perfect name for me – how come I can only find it in the boys’ section of baby name books? Even my middle name can only be found with the boy names. THAT’S NOT FAIR! MY NAME IS NOT SEXIST! IT IS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS!

…right?

In Which I Am A Nutter

We all have our weird things, right?

Like some people don’t like garbage bags and some can’t stand wooden spoons.

Me?

Well, okay, so. You know how when you put something in the microwave it gets hot? Then when it’s done being fried with radiation or whatever it is that happens, the microwave BEEPS?

Yes. Well.

I CANNOT STAND IT.

Sometimes I stand by the microwave, waiting for whatever’s in it to be done so I can open the door BEFORE IT BEEPS. If someone else in the house uses the microwave I yell at them as soon as it beeps to TAKE IT OUT TAKE IT OUT MAKE IT STOP!!!

You see, I have Beeping Microwave Sonar.

The microwave is downstairs in the kitchen and my room is upstairs, on the opposite side of the house, yet I can always hear the microwave when it beeps. Kitchen, living room, bedroom – wherever I am. I hear it. And something inside me gets incredibly annoyed and I feel like if it doesn’t stop I might break out in hives.

I’ve never actually had hives. But I imagine they feel like how hearing the microwave beep sounds. IE. they make you want to explode in pain and/or frustration. If the beeping doesn’t STOP, and QUICKLY, I start to go swiftly insane.

I do things like yell at whoever is closer to the microwave than me/whoever is using the microwave/whoever is around. And block my ears/go “lalalalalala” to block out the noise. And grit my teeth in anger.

So yeah. I’m weird about the microwave beeping.

But that’s not the only microwave-related thing that turns me into a nervous wreck.

The other thing is when people stop the microwave before it’s done going and then they don’t hit the clear button and the time left is still there instead of, um, the actual time.

This makes me a nutter.

I freak out for a moment, saying things like, “AM I THE ONLY ONE THIS DRIVES CRAZY???” (apparently I am). I hurry over and hit the clear button, then I FIND whoever used the microwave last and give them a stern talking-to.

They tell me I have problems.

Maybe they’re right. I have microwave-related problems.

BUT ALL PROBLEMS COULD BE AVOIDED IF PEOPLE JUST STOPPED THE INCESSANT BEEPING AND CLEARED THE SCREEN PLEASE.

Name Angst Galore

I will not burden you all with my name angst. Instead I will just consult my handy dandy 50,001 Best Baby Names book.

Changing your protag’s name 20k into the novel is GREAT FUN. /sarcasm

Now, I have some rules for naming my important characters.

1.  No friends’ names.
2. No names that immediately make me think of someone else that I know.
3. No names of people I hate really don’t like.
4. No names that, if I used them, people in my life would think I named the character after someone I know.

Under the first point there are many names. There will never be a character named: Michelle, Taylor, Brad/Bradley, Madi/Madison, Ashley, Sarah, Erika, Jocelyn, etc etc etc.

Under the second point there are names of people I know and have known for a while and who, though we’re not particularly close, I still have a strong name-person association with. Names like: Keegan, Kelsey, Lee, etc etc.

Under the third point there are only three names. I’m not going to tell you what they are but let’s just say that it is really really difficult to get put on my bad list. Generally I like people. 

Under the fourth point: self-explanatory.

But with all these rules, there are a lot of names I can’t use.

Some of them I really like.

One of them, lately, I really really like for this particular character, but since I can’t use it (it falls under three of the above categories), the character’s name is June UNTIL OTHERWISE NOTIFIED.

…sigh.

Do any of you other writers have such issues? Or am I just neurotic and extra-special weird?