Some Days I Wish for Silence (and a kitten of my own)

Well, friends.
I really need to be a writer. I mean, I am a writer. But I want to make a living making art.
THAT'S ALL I WANT TO DO WHY CAN'T SOMEONE PAY MY BILLS WHILE I DO THAT?

Alright, I'll stop having a temper tantrum. I'm working on a book but I can't really share what I have now in its entirety because the best piece I've written will get me in loads of trouble. I don't really have a whole lot to report on my life (dating strike is still going strong) so I am going to share some writing that I just did. This is a pretty lazy post and what I'm sharing isn't my favorite piece of writing but I've been thinking a lot about busy minds and soulmates, so this is what happened. This is a first draft that I'm sharing so if you think it sucks you should tell me but also have some notes for christ's sake. No one likes the asshole that offers criticism without being constructive, right? Also it's 3AM WHOOPS.

Some Days I Wish for Silence

Some days I wish for silence. I wish that I could sit in absolute silence for a sliver of time but my head buzzes and vibrates with unfinished sentences and fill-in-the-blank phrases that I will complete and forget before I even get the chance to write them down. It’s okay, because I’ll think of more and on occasion I’ll write one down or the mood will strike me to report them all to the glowing screen that knows all my secrets. Night after night I roll out my soul, hoping that if I stretch it far enough apart to see the words etched there it might be enough for a moment of solitude on the recoil.

I do not wish for a silent world because a writer is nothing if the world is quiet. A quiet world and a loud head are always a sign of impending doom, haven’t you noticed? The world is loud and if one day it isn’t, something is terribly wrong. Some days I wish for a silent mind. I wish for the silence that can only be brought by the intertwining of two souls bound together in seemingly all the wrong points. There are lots of different ways to define soulmates and it’s foolish to think we only ever have one. A soulmate does not make the world around you silent, a soulmate makes the world inside you stop. He can be miles away but you feel the loudness in his head and it is only matched with the constant repetition of the lines you need him to hear that aren’t quite right. She can be falling apart hours away and you feel reminders that she is suffering like deep stabs all the way through your tightly recoiled soul. He can touch your face at 5am while you’re wrapped like a cheap present and even though everything is wrong your sentences were all complete and the blanks were all filled in. She can lay at the other end of the couch without saying a word and you’ll have no blanks to fill in or sentences to complete because right then you have everything you need and the world will carry on but for now she is okay and you are okay.

Soulmates will hide from you and soulmates will not return your calls because you are one of the few that hear the falter in the cadence of  “I’m okay” or see the cracks in the arrogant façade. A soulmate does not have to stretch your soul to recognize the tears and find the words that have been etched because soulmates have tears and holes in the same places from different days. Some days I wish for silence but a soulmate knows the most beautiful things can only come from the buzzing in your head.

Okay the end. It's relatively short. Also, I have one request at the end of this post. If you read my blog frequently (don't laugh, there are some of you out there) it would be really, super cool if you could share on the internet your favorite post I've written because networking. Or the most recent, but I doubt this will be a favorite of very many individuals. 

Dating Strike. This is happening.

I am publicly proclaiming a dating strike for the next month so there are people to hold me accountable. That's right. Public humiliation is a great motivator.

I know I have told my friends the token "I just really need to be single right now," after every. single. breakup. or after things don’t work out with an individual regardless of if we were anything or nothing or whatever. Then I end up talking about some guy a week later that I met at some place and he doesn't act like the spawn of Satan so he must be nice right? Dating is hard and I'm tired of it right now.

The issue of being a writer and dating is that every first date or first kiss or glance is the start of a story or the continuation of the story I have been writing for myself. I’m writing the story we can tell everyone when our hair is white so they know exactly when the wrinkles started forming on our faces from the jokes and the fights we still have. The issue of just being a creative person in general is that on average I have about 15 (I made that number up but I would guess it's around there) more feelings associated with everyday events, so imagine how I feel in emotionally intense situations. ALL THE FEELS.

I was going to give more reasons as to why I’m officially declaring a personal dating strike but that’s a lot of information about my personal life I do not care to share with the possible strangers that read my blog. I think it would be more fun to talk about the logistics of the thing with a list of rules I’m giving myself.

1) No dates.

2) Hanging out with that one guy you met last week counts as a date too and he probably sucks anyway. 

3) Write all of your feelings. Get them out of your crazy little head. Make a dent in the book you’re going to write FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

The end. Those are my rules for the next month. It’s like a cleanse-diet for the hopeless romantic. After a month, hopefully I can make eye contact with an attractive man and not create an entire novel in my head in .372 seconds. But I’m a hopeless romantic so I’ll always at least have the first chapter done, SORRY BRO. A month from now will be February 20, which happens to be right before February 22, which will mark the 23^rd year of my existence. The strike is ending before my birthday so if anyone feels like declaring his (or her, I guess, but unless she’s Katy Perry chances are slim) undying and everlasting love for me on my birthday for a nice ego-boost that’d be cool. A present will be required if anyone is planning on making such a declaration.

***There are exceptions to the strike***

1) George Clooney. There’s a contest I need to enter before the end of the month to be his date to the Monument Men premier on February 4 and if I win I clearly won’t be passing that up.

2) Drake. Or lezbehonest anyone that resembles Drake. I have a type, folks.

3) I’m not telling you number 3 because it is morally questionable and would require divulging too much of my clusterfuck personal life.

NOTE: I have two lists, each a list of three, resulting in 6 points all together, so I am not having a fit about odd numbers. Neuroticism at its finest.

xoxoxo

I clearly need to get over some phobias.

Guys. I love positivity. The other day at work, my coworker and I were updating each other on all the shitty things that had happened since we last saw each other, and finally she asked me to say one good thing that's happened since we last worked together and I LOVED that. Absolutely.  

However, I have noticed some social media things that make me want to punch babies, which is why I started off with a positive tidbit because this is not positive anymore. Numbers 1 and 2 are both from today.

1) There is a #StopThighGap movement (no movement is complete without a hashtag donchaknow). I didn't even know that was a real thing until everyone tried stopping it and I just want everyone to know that if you weren't born with wide hips and/or skinny legs the chances of you having a thigh gap are about the same as finding a unicorn on the back of a Sasquatch on their way to Atlantis. BEYONCE doesn't even have a thigh gap and if Beyonce doesn't have that, no one needs it. I just googled thigh gap and any single person that posted a picture saying "Do it for the thigh gap" and was serious deserves a punch in the ovaries. Actually, I've heard men talking about thigh gaps too. So, punch in the prostate for men. I think that would hurt, right?

Let me tell you how to get a thigh gap. Stand with your legs not touching. There's your fucking thigh gap.

2) This pastor with the blog called "I'm Dating Someone Even Though I'm Married" is pissing me off. It's by Jarrid Wilson. I'm not linking it here because I think it's dumb but if you must read it google will help. Anyway, SPOILER ALERT he's dating his wife. He takes his wife on dates. Time out. WHY is anyone applauding him for spending time with his wife? Congratulations, bro. You're choosing to be nice to the person that agreed to spend forever with you and now everyone is swooning about how great of a husband you are. MAYBE there's a reason the divorce rate is so high? MAYBE the standards for men in marriages are a bit low. I don't know. Maybe everyone started to see marriage as the finish line instead of a starting point. Like, phew, we're married now all of the work is done. And now there is a whole generation of women that are actually petrified of marriage (or just me but I'll continue anyway) because it sounds more like a death sentence than a new chapter of life. 

Then we have assholes like this that stomp around the internet like a digital tyrannosaurus getting all sorts of attention for doing what he should have been doing the WHOLE TIME. ANGER. 

3) This might be dumb but please tell my why everyone is so up in arms about this snapchat info leak? The only people I snapchat with know my phone number already... so... I'm confused. The only way you get weird snaps from random people is if you add them back. Like I have some randos that want me to add them on snapchat but I don't know them so I'm not going to accept their requests. Also, whole numbers aren't even leaked yet, right? If you thought snapchat was a foolproof way to send 'private' pictures I actually kind of hope your pictures get leaked too. Most of my snapchats are about cats or wine. The only questionable snapchat I've sent was on New Year's Eve because I drunkenly sent a poorly angled picture while wearing a low-cut dress and it wasn't even that bad. I sent it to my mom amongst many others anyway. I'm pretty convinced all the outraged people are either Republicans or sending nudey pic snaps. Or both. HAH. 

4) I just really don't like odd number lists unless they are in increments of five. I think this must be why I've never been great at math because I just don't like odd numbers. Odd numbers and raccoons. Speaking of, I haven't seen a raccoon since I moved to Chicago and now I am terrified of what will happen when I see one again. The thought alone makes my chest tight and I think I have hives now.

I usually have Mondays off anyway

For those of you that do not regularly read my blog (you suck) I live in Chicago. This is not going to be a post about the cold, I promise. It feels like it's -35 degrees outside though, according to the Weather Channel app I have in case anyone was wondering. A lot of people have snow days from work. I just usually have Mondays off but I acted like I had a snow day. It's 6:43pm and I have done nothing except snuggle with stuffed animals and watch Walking Dead. And last night my roommate and I got drunk and watched RuPaul's Drag Race. #postgradlyfe 

This is a post about how I think I am more concerned about the apocalypse than I should be and I might blame that on too much Walking Dead, Hunger Games, and a wild imagination I have yet to (read: never will) outgrow.

Last night I slammed my finger in my car door (I promise this is related). I was told by my mother via text that I need to go start my car before the Polar Vortex. I started to clear my car off with frozen hands because it was already sub-zero when I went to start my car last night. As I slammed my back door shut and walk away I realized my hand was still in the door. Happy January. So I open the door back up and pull my hand out. At this point I am 90% certain my finger is broken. The FIRST thought to cross my mind was not "Good thing the hospital is literally across the street." It was not "I should call Dad and see what to do." It wasn't even "Goddamnit you're an idiot Ashlee." It's weird it wasn't the last one because I usually feel that way all the time. 

No, the first thought that came to mind was, "If the world ends tomorrow in a deepfreeze and I have a broken finger, how am I going to be useful in a post-apocalyptic world?" I think my roommate is concerned about my mental state. But then I felt a bit relieved because if the world ends I'm down the street from a fire station and seeking shelter in a fire station is probably the best place to go because what fireman will look at another firefighter's daughter and not help her? WIN.

Today, during the coldest temperatures Chicago has seen in 20 years, I called my best friend and left her a voicemail. In that voicemail I informed her that if today we deepfreeze into the end of the world that I will make sure I come find her, so if she does any traveling she should stick to I-88 because that's how I will get to her.

I really question if this is normal behavior. But in Game of Thrones all the dreadful things are hidden in the snow and ice so can you really blame me? And after my Walking Dead binge that is still in progress (Season 3 Ep. 6) I can't help but think about what I would bring to the table in a group of people. I don't know if hoping some man will find my neuroticism endearing post-apocalypse is as good of a plan as it seems to be right now, you know? Quirky charm isn't going to save any lives. Telling everyone in the group I'm documenting our travels so I can write a book about it one day is not going to please anyone in the group, and if anyone else was pleased by that I probably just found a hoard of English majors and unless your name is Dr. Jason Peters most people that like English a lot are lacking survival skills. 

[Sidenote: If the worlds ends I want to be in Jason Peters' group because he can grow food, he's friends with Wendell Berry so the group could run away to Berry's farm, his kids are pretty crafty from the sounds of it, and he hates stupid people so I'd probably be the intellectual cutoff (AKA dumbest person allowed in the group). I'm not even being creepy here, guys. It's a great plan.]

Something else I've been thinking about lately is how screwed I will be if we have an actual zombie apocalypse. Everyone in Chicago will be a zombie if that happens. But if civilization breaks down without some awful plague, I'm going to be set. Gas runs out? It's okay I can walk. Out of food? Hang on let me grow it on top of this building or the empty lot next door. Out of water? I'll just boil some water from Lake Michigan.  I know I'll figure out how to start a fire or at least find someone who can. Plus I still have a lot of matches because I bought too many one time in college. Chicago is the place to be when we run out of fossil fuels and everyone is mad at the Republicans for not wanting to spend more researching alternative fuels.

Other things happening in my life: I had a date. It was lovely. None of you get details here because why would I do that? Dumb. HOODIE ALLEN CALLED ME ON FRIDAY. I direct your attention to my Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram because I had a social media freakout. I went outside in the cold today just to see what -35 degrees feels like. In case you were wondering, it feels cold. I submitted a real form of writing to Thought Catalog so we'll see if they ever respond. I have written two actual pieces that are not for the blog since I decided I need to keep writing and the second one needs a lot of work still. But we'll get there. The end.

Also if you like my blog and I don't know you I just made my Twitter a public thing because I guess I don't really care who reads my tweets; I am ridiculous no matter what. So go there (right here) and enjoy.