Without poems and deep thoughts...

I find myself being unsure what to write about. I see people blogging about Halloween and candy, how their day went and their new hair color. Meanwhile I'm sitting over here on the fence with my notepad watching the game play out, wondering where to start with each entry. It's sort of the same problem I have with vlogging. There seems to be no point to it, like I'm not getting anywhere and no one really wants to watch me ramble about my mundane life anyway. But there are hundreds of subscribers on my YouTube channel and only 25 followers here who probably haven't stuck around since I created this thing however many years ago. So... here goes nothing. I'm gonna dive right in and blog about my life.

So I've been in college in Maryland for two and a half months now. It feels incredible typing that, almost unreal. It honestly feels like it's been so much longer, like I've been here for half my life or something. It just feels like home. Which is why my financial situation is so frustrating: I want to stay here, I need to be with the people I love, but I don't know if my bank account can handle it.

I love that I can talk about love so freely here. I can tell people I love them and mean it. I don't have to worry about it or think twice. I was very lucky for the harsh experiences I had leading up to college because it prepared me to be honest and brave and say what's on my mind. I don't know where I would be without those qualities.

So each semester we get 500 printer points. For both my English and Creative Nonfiction classes we have to print drafts of everyone's work and give them feedback, as well as printing out letters to the author. For english the minimum page number is 3, for Nonfiction it's 5. There's 15 people in one class, 17 in the other. I'm just gonna let you do the math on the amount of printer points that is. I'm at 230 right now and I'm about to have to steal some from someone else. Honestly, it's mostly frustrating because it's such a waste of friggin trees. Jeez.

My German teacher seems to think I'm some kind of language prodigy because I've taken three years of German and know more than most people in my class. Which isn't really saying much because I'm in the first level of German and if you've taken three years of it you should probably be more advanced.... just sayin'. She keeps cornering me and telling me that I need to go to Berlin this summer. and I'm like teach, my bank account don't bend that way. She seems to think otherwise. And lets me know often that my girlfriend is thinking about going. Which I know she's not because she's my girlfriend. Which is another improvement in my life. I'm not letting fear of relationships get to me. I'm far from home, and I've neatly shoved the past into a mason jar. It's not going to find me here.

I'm going to a wizard rock show this Wednesday in Springfield, Virginia with my friend Alex. This whole time I've been at college I've been yearning to attend a wizard rock show and take my mind off things. Even when I'm happy, extra weight gets lifted off my shoulders when I sit in a circle up front and listen to music about the Boy Who Lived. It's more than refreshing, it's more exciting than the most accurate metaphor, and I'm simply bouncing in my comfy blue library chair. I love the fact that I've been going to wizard rock shows since 2007 and each one feels as fresh and brand new as the one before. It just gets my bones so jumpy and happy and nothing else matters.

Last Friday, a girl named Mal Blum came to play in Baltimore. I found this adorable musician through my friend Liz who knew of my love of "Ampersand" by Amanda Palmer and sent me a link to Mal's cover of the song. I then found her other videos and became just a little bit infatuated with her. This was over a year ago. A month or so ago I shared her "Baltimore" music video with my college friends and they fell in love with her too. That's why we were all freaking out (okay, it was mainly just me freaking out) when we found out she was playing so close to us.

The collegetown shuttle ended up never coming and so we took Jimmy's taxi-van-thing down to the 2640 Space, where I hid from Mal's gorgeousness until after she and an amazingly talented Zoe Boekbinder sang their gorgeous melodies into the mic. I Hagrid-hugged Mal and explained the concept of Hagrid hugs, my friend Elisabeth's earthworm face, and told her of Liz's obsession with her, to which she replied, "I'm obsessed with her too!" and then wrote her a note. She was just so freaking nice and friendly and she gave me her contact info to book her at our school and eeeeee I freaked out forever because she's just such a sweetheart and I'm so glad I got to see her and got the lady balls to talk to her. It was such a nice intimate venue and I'd love to go back sometime soon.

Well, my hands are aching now and I need to go back to revising English papers. This talking about my life thing is kind of nice. Maybe I'll do it more often and eventually vlogging might even come naturally.

Metal smiles and Hagrid hugs,
Tianna

clean

fuchsia and lime.
wrap me up and take your time.
until morning, we walk the quad.
arm in arm, golden silence.
you won't ask me how i'm doing.
it's ingrained in your brain:
"okay."
our ghosts are with us everywhere we go.
we strangle them, fight with death.
we're not as weak as we thought.