No Phone

We as humans have come so far in advancing technology. But our development of communication technology is now surpassing it's original intentions and inhibiting us from doing any actual communicating. I'm so sick of trying to hold a conversation with someone while they have a goddam phone planted in front of their face, answering a text, playing with an app, checking Facebook or Gmail, all the while absentmindedly mmhmm-ing, as if they are listening to what I'm saying. Not only is it rude, it hurts my feelings because it says to me that checking into Foursquare is more important than myself and my time. Yes technology is awesome. But you know what's better? Actual human interaction.

The next time you ask me how I've been and then immediately look at your phone to see who just posted on your wall, I'm walking away.

You can use your phone for what it was originally intended for and call me when you actually want to talk.

Where do I stand?

My patience is slowly but surely vanishing.

Sleeper 1972

The last memory I have of my dad is at the Savannah International Airport. It was 7:30 in the morning and the smell of the pretzel stand in the terminal made me want to throw up. I was arguing with a security officer at the security check point who was convinced my laptop needed to go through the scanner twice. As I grabbed my stuff and put my shoes back on, my mom annoyingly poked me and said, "wave!!! Emma, waaave!" She was standing on her toes, jumping up and down, waving like a maniac at my dad who was standing at the top of the ramp doing the exact same thing. I rolled my eyes, but waved anyways. At that moment a group of people walked by, blocking his view.

And that was the last time I ever saw him.

If I even began to list the 'what-ifs', you'd be reading a novel. What if we had missed our flight and had to wait another day for the next one? We would have been there with him and we could have helped him. What if I had called right after it happened? He would have been able to answer the phone and I could have called 911. What if the man in the room next to him had heard him collapse? He could have come to help him.

I could sit in my room all day and run through these scenarios, but at the end of the day, it doesn't change a thing because I can't change anything.

My emotions are off the Richter Scale. One second I'm OK. The next I want to throw something through the window. I want someone to hold me. I'll punch the next person that touches me. I can't sleep alone. I can't sleep at all. I'm laughing. I'm crying. I'm numb.

I haven't yet experienced that one cry. You know...the one where everything hits you like a tidal wave and OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO THROW UP I'M CRYING SO HARD. That one. Sure, I collapsed on the sidewalk outside the house when I heard the news. The neighbors stood on their porch, as severely confused as I was. And I've burst into tears when my mom and sister have lost it, or when people make random visits at the house. But I'm terrified that one good cry is going to sneak up on me while I'm standing in the grocery store, debating if it's worth spending an extra $1.50 0n the organic head of lettuce. Or while I'm sitting in class and the professor is droning on about censorship in Japan.

Everyone keeps telling me if I need anything, anything at all, just ask. But the one thing I need, the one thing that would make this all better, make this nightmare end........they can't give me. I don't need flowers. I don't need a hug. I don't need another goddamn tray of assorted pastries. I need my dad.

I'm scared of what happens after the funeral. After the house is empty and everyone has left. Everyone is going to go on with their lives; they already are. No one knows how this feels right now. It's selfish of me to expect everyone to drop what they're doing, stop having fun and cry because I'm crying. I want to hang out with my friends, go to awful house shows, ride my bike, and go to class, because that's what everyone else is doing. But I'm always going to hold this burden in my hands and he's always going to be in the back of my mind. I don't want to think about what's going to happen after my sister graduates and my mom is left here alone. I don't want to think about my wedding day and who will give me away. I don't want to think about my future children. But that's all that's on my mind.

Everyone keeps telling me, "everything happens for a reason." I don't think everything happens for a reason. I just think this is life. And things just happen. And we deal with them. He spent a year in Iraq. He finally retired. He was going to finally be home with us for good in 18 days. He was going to work at MTSU and I was going to have lunch with him every day. But that all vanished in an instant and now I just have to accept that fact and deal with it.

If you have read this far, I'm sorry if I made you cry. I'm sorry if this is miserably depressing. But this is just what I'm dealing with at this point in time and I'm just being honest. I know things will get better, it's just going to take some time. Writing all this has helped a lot because I'm awful when it comes to talking about my feelings.

I will leave you with this though. Before we left Georgia, my dad took us to Tybee Island. We climbed to the top of a lighthouse and clung to the wall after reaching the top. We all stood there as the wind whipped through our hair and took in the view. My dad held my mom's hand and asked, "Isn't this beautiful?"

Sweet Talk

I'm not looking for sweet talk.

I'm looking for time.

Insomnia

Have you ever been so upset you can't sleep? I've found that you can't always rely on people, but you can always rely on animals to make you feel better. Hope this makes your night better.

The Every Boy

Telling the truth is so much easier. Every lie requires a lifetime of maintenance.

My sister and I are making a new blog. This is just a prototype, but we think it has potential. We'd love your input. Your pet peeves are probably our pet peeves. Like for instance, the word pet peeves.

On Goings and Goings On

Long time no blog; the summer's been busier than I had initially planned on. I have yet to determine if this this a good thing or a bad thing. Looking at my bank account, I'm gonna take the high road and say it's a good thing.

For those of you who don't know, my [basically full-time] job is making soap. Yes. I make soap. Before you read any further, get the whole Fight Club notion out of your head because it's not that glorious. There's a scientific method to it, but it does not involve rendering fat. It's much simpler and I'm planning on making more entries about it. My experiences at work that is, not the whole soap-making process, that's actually kind of boring. The store I work at is located at The Factory in Franklin, an old warehouse that's been converted into a hoity-toity shopping center. This building also serves as a venue for weddings, corporate conventions and other frivolous events. One in particular involved Gary Allan performing an exclusive pre-CMA Fest show. The crowd, which consisted mostly of 40-something-year-old women wearing low-cut band T-shirts and cowboy boots, only further reminded me that I live in the South.

I'm still recovering for Bonnaroo. It was an experience to say the least. When you get a chance, read this to get a taste for some of the acts I saw. For more on what I couldn't publish on the site, continue reading.

It was unorganized chaos littered with thousands of unbathed hippies, overpriced food, all in the sweltering heat....and yet I can't really think of a time when I've had more fun. Yes I complained a hell of a lot and yes Quinton and I bickered like a married couple, but thinking back on it now I wouldn't change a thing other than bringing, oh...ya know...an air conditioned tour bus. Seriously though, the music made it all worth it. Sitting with Quinton one night just soaking it all in, it was an indescribable high (pun intended).

Dan Deacon was playing directly in front of us, Kaskade was spinning to the right of us. Dead Mouse fans sat on our other side, their masks attracting curios passersby. It's crazy to think we literally just saw Jay-Z perform a couple hundred feet away. Bonnaroo is a like a small city. And just like New York, it NEVER sleeps. Nothings out of the ordinary here and anything goes. [The boob count was around 14 if you were wondering]. Everywhere I looked, all I saw were grins. Either these kids were high as a kite or just literally in their element. I'm assuming it was both.

Standing in the press area (hot damn did I feel legit) watching Regina tinker on the piano, nodding to Wayne Coyne as he walked by, followed closely by writers of NPR, Esquire and numerous other publications, it made me realize how much I love my job sometimes. Taking shelter from the heat in the almost-unbearibly air conditioned press tent, people were hunched over computers, writing, editing, emailing, tweeting...

The mass of cellphones in the corner vibrated and rang like a nest of baby birds, their cords fighting for outlet space. A journalist was passed out on the now grimy couch, a copy of the daily printed Bonnaroo newspaper covering his face. John Fogerty might have been doing soundcheck at that moment, but this nap was way more important.

World News

I have enough money for a plane ticket. I'm buying one and going somewhere far away. Alone.

The question is...

to where?

"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves." - Henry Miller

narcissist

I wish you would just swallow your pride.

Because I miss you too.

Jack of all trades, master of none

I was sitting watching Henry play guitar today and it kind of got me down. Not his playing; he's awesome at it. I just came to the realization that I'm not particularly good at anything, and come to think of it, I never really have been. My parents never coerced me into playing sports, but even if they had I'm pretty sure the other kids would have gotten injured due to my lack of hand-eye coordination. I did ballet for about 9 years, but 5 of those years I was forced to do so and I was the class clown and never took anything seriously. Not to mention, pointe is the most excruciating thing to endure, I like being able to walk thank you very much. They never forced me to play an instrument (I only played the clarinet in 8th grade so that I could go on the Disney trip).

I look at my friends and I see that some are exceptional photographers. Others are awesome at rock climbing. A few are out of this world musicians. Everyone has their forte. What's mine? I like writing, but it's just something I'm always doing, not necessarily excelling at. Sometimes I'm scared I only picked my major because if I wasn't doing journalism...I don't know what the hell I'd be doing. Does everyone have unnerving thoughts like this? Or is everyone in this mindset of "well thank God I'm freakishly good at circular breathing, I have no doubts about my oboe playing abilities"?

I'm tired of being a generalist, at best. I'm relatively competent at a lot of things but not outstanding at anything. I want an awesome talent. Something that makes me distinguishable.

"Oh that's Emma. She is INSANE at (water polo/tightrope walking/neurosurgery)."

Gotta love GQ magazine.

Dear (Possibly Doomed) Class of 2010:

Well, you finally made it. You graduated! You spent four years (or eight, or ten–no judgments!) and eleventy billion dollars of your parents’ money, and now you’re a bunch of learned-ass adults.

Now for the bad news. You’re joining the workforce in the middle of a jobless recovery, which is basically the O’Doul’s of economic rallies. It’s no picnic out here. Or, okay, it’s a picnic, but it’s a Cormac McCarthy The Road type of picnic, there’s not enough canned peaches in the shopping cart, and everybody’s calling dibs on the one bullet. And also there are fire ants.

Mighty institutions people once took for granted–banks, newspapers, American Idol–are crumbling, and while most of them deserve to, the problem with a world without mighty institutions is that mighty institutions used to employ a lot of people. You could always get The Man to finance your lifestyle. No more. That unpaid internship you’ve got your eye on? Be prepared to flight somebody for it. Possibly your dad.

You’ve never known hardship. You’ve also never lived in a world without Intenet, which means you’ve grown up with an exaggerated sense of your own self-importance. You posted ‘response’ videos on YouTube; poured out your every typeable thought on a glittering, blinking MySpace page.

You had access to all the machinery of self-promotion before you really had a self. You thought of fame as a birthright. And now you’ve been booted into a world that will LOL at your sense of awesome-life-entitlement, then offer to ‘hire’ you to blog for free.

Having a thousand Facebook friends means about as much in 2010 as a personalized-license-plate key chain meant in 1990. We live in a moment when anybody can make a name for themselves; the game you’re suiting up for is about making that name matter.

- GQ

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So who's excited about graduating???!!!!????

Wide Eyes

"All the men of faith and men of science had their questions.

Could it ever be on earth as it is in heaven?"

Re-Arrange

After writing that previously miserable post, I got to thinking. Whenever I have a free moment (which only seems to be between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.) I daydream about how kick ass the summer is going to be a) Sidelines will be strictly online, no print edition. woot woot. b) I won't spend 40+ hours a week in the mass comm building; seriously, I'm friends with the janitorial staff and I'm surprised the school isn't charging me rent, and c) FREEE TIME. omgz

There are a few things to look forward to. First and foremost, I'm going to be making a little road trip to Arkansas to visit my beloved friend Sam Walker. This trip is long overdue and he calls me at least 2-3 times a week to remind me of this fact. I need to get out of TN for a little while and what better place to go than...um...Arkansas. Yeeeah.

I'm taking a feature writing class in June and my favorite professor is teaching it. When I say he's my favorite, that's not an understatement. The man brings us cookies to class for godsakes. I'm just happy to finally be taking a class that will teach me how to write properly because I've been wingin it this past semester as the features editor.

BONNA-FREAKIN-ROO. nuff said.

Upright bass lessons with Quinton? Yessuh. No one believes that I used to play piano or any instrument for that matter. It's cool because neither do I.

Hopefully the list will grow and I will accomplish the things on said list.

In other news, I'm looking forward to next fall semester because I'm looking to get more involved on campus in a way that doesn't involve the paper. For starters, Raiders Against Animal Cruelty, MT Outdoor Pursuits, and TOMS shoes campus club are things I'm going to be getting into. I'm tired of not being allowed to join groups like these because it's a "conflict of interest." F that. I just wrote an article on TOMS and it got me really giddy, so much so that I bought another pair. The fact that I bought a pair of shoes for a child that needs them gives me immeasurable happiness. Plus, Oprah thinks they're the shiz, so obviously, everyone else should too.

High five you're alive

The days keep morphing together, so much so that sometimes I forget what day it is. My 20th birthday came and went. I know the end of the semester is around the corner. It's just not in sight.

I sat outside today, watching Roz pace back and forth on the sidewalk, her disheveled bleached hair glinting in the sunlight.

"My life's gone to shit, Emma," she informed me as I quietly picked the gold polish off my nails.

"That's not necessarily.......true," I paused on the last word as I realized what I was telling her was, in fact, a blatant lie. She looked down at me, and we both knew it, letting out simultaneous sighs.

I suggested she take two hours out of a day to clean up her apartment, get the bills in order, forget about the paper and call her friend that's in a really bad place. But even as I suggested it, we both knew it was a stupid suggestion. She doesn't have two hours. She barely has two minutes.

Call me naive, but having responsibilities blows. I miss the times when people would call to ask how you were doing instead of "I need something from you." The weather has been so beautiful lately, but the only time I get to enjoy it is when I'm walking from class to class.

Is it this town that makes it so hard to be content? I can't say I've ever encountered anyone who has professed their love for it. The first time I ever came here I remember thinking "everything is gray and there are too many gas stations."

It's like none of us belong here and we all know it. But we don't do anything about it except complain. We all have this notion that we have to pay our dues and hopefully, things will pay off and get better. Q made me all depressed yesterday. He wants to get out so bad, this town has nothing for him. It's a cesspool filled with people who have big dreams, who talk up these big dreams, who daydream about these big dreams...but never actually fulfill them. I argued that this wasn't necessarily....true. I paused. I thought about all my aspirations and suddenly couldn't swallow the lump in the back of my throat.

I'm all for snapping out of this dismal mood. Things could be worse. But I hope they get better.

Sweet Disposition

I could listen to Leah laugh all day. I feed off of other people's personalities, it's something I've noticed about my own personality a long time ago. When I'm around her, her laugh makes me laugh. My sense of humor radiates, making her laugh harder, leaving me crying because I laugh harder too. I'm constantly floored by her demeanor; you would never know that she carries a broken heart when her laugh can light up a room. I guess the saying is true - it's only when we have lost everything that we are free to do anything. Life didn't end for her when her mother passed away. If anything, it only made her open her eyes and realize her passion to start living. And it's through her loss that I've realized how stagnant I've let my life become. I can attribute it to the winter weather. Or the turmoil of school and the paper. Or the loss of a loved one. But in the end, I only have myself to blame. The fact of the matter is I haven't managed my time wisely. I wasted my time on someone who didn't deserve it. I lost sight of the whole reason I enrolled in school in the first place; to get an education. I've been half-assing everything, barely getting by, and ending up with a blurry sense of myself. But I'm back on my feet now.

We were standing on the beach the other day and as I was letting the frigid ocean wash over my toes, I felt like I had just woken up. Like the auto-pilot version of me had suddenly switched to manual. I'm excited to see what's going to happen this spring.

anesthetize.

The past two days have made me realize how trivial and insignificant the things in my life are when compared to the loss one of my best friends is going through at this very moment. My mind can't wrap around this pain and quite frankly, I don't want it to. You and I take the people who love and care for us for granted every single day.

I only wish we weren't so distracted and self-involved to see this.

Glass Figurine

You've got me sitting on your mantle like a little glass figurine

Why must you be so mean?

No, I'm not your little toy,

your rosy-cheeked joy,

though the thought of you makes me sanguine

I'll do anything you want,

but I won't be your glass figurine.

My heart feels so heavy right now.