What goes around comes around...?

Karma. Does karma exist? The essential answer is "no". Good things do not happen to good people all of the time, and bad things do not happen to bad people all of the time. Well, I suppose that part of this is because nobody is completely good or completely bad. Everyone has their own justification; their own purpose, no? Everyone looks right in the eyes of their own higher power. So... karma can't exist. Who gets to decide what's good and what's bad? God? The government? The people? It doesn't matter; anyone- any group who tries to decide that isn't going to fly with everyone else. Our world is one, big conflict; we are the soldiers. I am an army.

This is the part of my life called "financially dismal." Whatever future I saw before me is now a big blur, wiped of its clarity the moment my mother was laid off. Really, how does that happen? The single parent with one elderly dependent and one college-bound dependent gets laid off.

Let's review the facts.

My mom screwed up big time. She's been in debt since I was in sixth grade. Is she still paying off these debts? Yes. I can't even... begin to name the idiotic decisions she's made in the past six years. Attempting to save her dying company with her own money, taking loans from her own children... ridiculous. Pride and prejudice. War and peace. More war than peace, actually. It tore the family apart. My brothers might as well be named Howard and Buglar. Except there is no ghost in this story. The ghost is money. Money is silly.

We've never had the best financial situation, but have I ever looked at my future and saw nothing? No. But the sad reality is that without money, there is nothing. Money is everything. Everything is silly.

So the course plots itself. Financial aid. Scholarships, grants, loans... when I apply for all of this, I get the big stamp called "unemployed parent." Whoopee. What, they shell out a few extra dollars for my sob story? Sure. Am I good enough to get everything taken care of? No. I have me. I have... scraping by as a good prospect for the next four years. I have the will to be much, much better than this. Because this? This is silly.

"The training is nothing. The will is everything. The will to act."

The most beautiful sound in all the world.

Pitter patter.

Ah, how refreshing... I feel like the sound itself is just breathing life into me. Now if only I could go frolicking in it without catching pneumonia.

Curse you, human vulnerability. You know what I did today? I went to CVS and bought cough drops two weeks in advance for when I get sick at Chicago. Established fact: 90% of us will come back deathly ill. Flu vaccine? No, screw that, we're Asian. We don't do vaccines. We do herbal tea and some black stuff that could be the blood of humans for all we know. Now, one person I know might enjoy that, but what the heck? Yeah, millions of cures for diseases could exist in the rainforests that mankind is decimating, but if we still have to hold back a barf everytime we take medicine, the scientists aren't doing their job.

When I asked what animal I would be if I was one, I expected a lot of things. Tiger, sure. Wolf, whatever. Bull... kay. Sheep or ram for the zodiac, why not. A lion for a leo, even. But rhinocerus? Do I look like I have a big, freaking horn sticking out of my face? Are you joking? No, I don't think you're joking; I think you're an idiot. All things in moderation (even moderation), but at least be... mildly literal here. Mildly logical, even! I can't make a rhinocerus look cute. Not if I tried. Nothing is cute that has a giant horn threatening to shred you into two.

Speaking of cuteness, I looked in the mirror today...

Just kidding.

And the rain comes back again, as it does so intermittently because this is Southern California.

And I love it more with each passing cloud.

"And his Grace was so overcome with his feelings, he swallowed an olive."

What is love?

If that doesn't spur you into song, then I'm sorely disappointed in you.

That's the question, though, isn't it? I've been here, what, seventeen years? How do I know what love is? And I doesn't mean mushy gushy superficial attraction, I mean straight up true love. Learning the difference between love, and well... love, that's the hard part. I love my friends, but not that kind of love, dear goodness no. I don't support polygamy. That one special person, though, how do I know that what I feel is all that special? Is it the uncontrollable smile on my face? The fluttering of my heart? The sudden calm that overcomes me when he's around?

Learning the difference between love and love requires you to know yourself very, very well. Seventeen years isn't enough time to think about it in total, let alone intermittently.

I love days like this, when it's not raining but overcast outside. I love the rain, too, but only when I'm inside. When I'm outside, I like it overcast, with a cold humidity to the air. It makes the air... sweet, heavy, grounding.

Days like this are great in these times. It's like... a break from the world. Everyone's so... I dunno, uptight. I profess: I don't know everything, and I can't empathize with everyone. After all, I'm only applying to five schools, and I only have to do three applications. Aside from that, though... isn't everyone in the same or a really similar situation? Doesn't everyone have a bunch of homework, Beloved hanging over their heads like a nightmare, and senioritis creeping up like a bad cold?

Together we stand, divided we fall. Then... why does it feel like everyone's drifting so far apart? If we could, I don't know, look into each other's minds, feel what each of us feels together, wouldn't it be easier? None of us are Atlas. We can't bear the weight of the world on our shoulders. We are people. We are human. We need each other, so for goodness sake, let's fulfill our needs before we go sprinting to our wants.

Seriously.

I fail at blogging. Anyway...

You know, I think I'll only post when my life has anything interesting involved in it. Otherwise, it's quite moot.

Life kicks you in the butt sometimes. As someone, I forget who, puts it, "Life sucks, and then you die." But kicks in the butt usually help to adjust your perspective on things. I got a huge kick in the butt this week, and I was about to overreact, as I'm prone to. Luckily, I have people who keep my feet planted on the ground at all times.

Honestly, though, how far can a single person be pushed? It's like testing how far you can walk into the ocean while keeping your mouth and nose above water. Similarly, when a wave comes in, you get swept up unexpectedly and end up underwater anyway. Then the tide goes as it should, and you end up just waist high. That's a somewhat accurate description, you could say; I like to call it "barely drowning". Then the big kahuna comes along, and it's game over.

I have the funniest visions while sifting through my mind sometimes. For instance, just now, I imagined myself scooting along the ground with my forehead to the carpet. That's actually common for me to see, no matter how odd. No, I'm not hallucinating. It's sort of like... a single-frame interruption in the film that is my life. If you've ever seen Fight Club, it's like those really short instances where you see Tyler pop up on the screen. But less creepy.

I don't know if I've written this before, but I'm really good at non-sequiturs. Er, bad. Er... screw it, you know what I mean. I kill conversations like bad pie on a Sunday morning. That could be because I just sort of say the first thing that pops into my head. I mean, the first thing that pops into my head usually involves cheese, the number eight, or shoes... What any of these have to do with anything, I don't know.

Hm, for a bit of serious, I have to say that I don't like how frivolous people are being these days. Everyone's going out to eat every other day; it's a nightmare! It makes my home-cooked meals taste bland and green. (Green's not even a taste.) I mean, I've spent my fair share of money recently (I'm going to have to ask my mom for 600$ this week... maybe more.), but I feel BAD about it. Worse than bad, I feel terrible! But everyone's going out to concerts, eating at ridiculously expensive restaurants... I'm not targeting anyone in particular, because a whole bunch of people are in on it! And none of them show remorse for their twenty-dollar meals. I could puke just thinking about it.

I always manage to make Christmas weird. Hopefully not this year. My gifts... whatever I attempt, are going to be more about self-expression rather than last-minute budget breakers as I normally pull off. I wince at the thought of how I've failed miserably these past Christmases. I've been getting better at it, though, so hopefully... Ugh, more wincing while I remember.