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Endless Days, Repeat Life [07 Sep 2006|01:57pm] [ mood | nostalgic ] [ music | Tool -- Vicarious ] Kiefer is on Conan O'Brien tonight, supposedly, and I may just die. Oh the things one can think... Today the air of Tacoma felt like that of South Dakota and the moment I stepped out the front door I was overtaken by a confused nostalgia that made the world tilt, because for a moment I couldn't place where I actually lived right now. The air is cool and breezy; the kind that envelops your every limb and pore, wrapping around you as if to hoist you into the air. Like in South Dakota, I could smell the sap from pine trees making the air sweet and hypnotic and hear the whisper of dry, yellow grass in the breeze. I closed my eyes and swore I could feel the dry plains all around me, stretching in every direction. Memories like this always throw me back into a spiral of old feelings I have not felt since I lived in various places. It makes me think of the hot, red mountains of Arizona against a frightening blue sky with low, puffy clouds that turn the most vibrant set of red and orange in the sunsets. It makes me think of cactus and cracked earth and palm trees shifting uncomfortably in the hot breeze. It makes me think of the lush mountains of Colorado, the towering Rockies with it's temperate daytimes and frozen nights. It makes me think of the white sands of New Mexico and it's endless stretch of highway cutting through the earth, leading towards jagged towers of rock in the distance. It makes me think of fall afternoons in New Jersey, with grey skies and chilly "sweatshirt" wind as newly freed orange and brown leaves circle your feet and scuttle up the pavement. It makes me think of Pennsylvania with it's desolate lakes, endless stretches of green forest laden with curious squirrels and deer, neverending train tracks that cut through the trees and the whistle of working trains. It makes me think of England and the smell of damp pavement and brick houses in the mist, hundreds of black umbrellas that from above look like a stream, all flowing towards a dry place. It all makes me think of the old child-like curiosity, the selfishness of the teenage years, the pain of loss, the joy of hope, the never-ending change that always coarsed through my veins. Change is the one thing in my life that has never changed. Isn't that funny? Yet it still baffles me how I can be in a new place, yet still feel all these old places at once and know that they're all contained somewhere inside me, the memories lifting me, the various breezes and skies inspiring me. I don't believe so much in moving forwards or taking a look back. I think I have always just been a bit stagnant, standing in the same place, in the same stiff positions as always, just waiting for the world to c o l l i d e into me. Everything in my life always seems to be based around accidental reasoning. I am 22 years old and there's so much to live for and experience. I'm standing here right now, eyes closed, waiting to be enveloped. 2 comments|post comment

I Try to Stay Awake and Remember My Name [29 Aug 2006|05:40pm] [ mood | anxious ] [ music | Keane -- Everybody's Changing ] I have so much to talk about, concerning the Tool concert, my last few days of partying, the house and whatnot. But for now, I feel like a little self-analyzation. I am so weird. And I don't mean that in a "look at me, I am so weird, I must be alternatively cool and trendy" type of way. No, I am just a flat out weirdo. A socially-inept oddity. I sometimes feel so awkward in human skin with human companions, that I just totally crumble. I always tell myself I am social. I tell myself this, because I often enjoy the company of groups and seem to make friends wherever I go. I always feel totally surrounded by people who are interested in me and I them. But then I started thinking about it and realized, all my friends came from SCHOOL. All my friends I know from high school or college. I know so many people because I was forced into the same buildings as them non-stop for a dozen or so years. Were I thrown into a room with them all suddenly, having never gone to school with them before, I bet I would be the last person people talked to! Even my best friends! No it's not a self esteem issue. It's the simple fact that I notice my behavior greatly, especially when I am out wandering alone like today. I am a clod. I am a bumbling, nervous, clutzy, shy, jittery mess. I am something akin to a clown if you watch me from a distance. I may have a lot of friends, but the truth is that I am so shy and strange that I can't even talk to people I don't know. This is why I so often fail to make many new friends when I go places. I am so shy that when someone stops me or if I have to communicate with someone at a restaurant or library, my voice comes out in a stuttering squeak. People always ask me to repeat myself and then stare with a slightly, worried and suspicious eye. If I am walking down the street and someone is walking towards me, I just fall apart. My body goes real stiff, I start dropping shit, I have been known to trip. I just panic at any chance of communication. It's not that I don't want to communicate. It's just that I am strange. And sometimes when I do communicate, people just don't get me. Even my close friends go on and on about how odd I can be. They call me a weirdo, but not in an insulting way. It's just true that I can be odd and I have these really bizarre thoughts and quirks that can baffle. I think about the dumbest things, I worry about the most unrealistic circumstances, I day dream so much that half the time I am standing in front of someone, but I am a million miles somewhere else, flying through space on a tremendous white rocket, heading for the moon of some unknown planet. I am always so deep within the unlimited confines of an overactive mind, that I forget that I am on a planet full of other conscious creatures. And when I suddenly wake up for a moment and realize I am not alone and in fact, I am about to make some sort of interaction with another life form, my mind overheats, destructs, and leaves me in a vacant, confused lurch. Just a few minutes ago here at the library, I was putting some books in the drop slot. A man was standing there, waiting for me to put them in. A perfect example of my social anxiety, I start shaking and I go to take the books out, and instead I drop my wallet, my credit cards, and some change all over the ground. I scramble to pick them up and then drop my bag. I finally have the books in my hand and the guy is looking at me with the most stressed look and he's repeating over and over again "I can take those books for you." and I am just staring at him as if he were alligator with a sombrero on, speaking to me in Latin. It didn't even occur to me that he was speaking to ME, trying to get through to me, despite my weird clumsiness. My hand is shaking as I hand him the books and I am trying to say "Thank you" but the word "Thank" comes out in a whisper and the word "You" came out in an overdramatic, piercing squeak. He's looking at me, slightly bothered even as I am walking away. Then after this incident, I started walking up some stairs to this computer center. As usual, I am fumbling with my bag, kind of swaying from side on the stairs because I am multi-tasking with my bag, trying to navigate myself without looking like too much of an idiot. When suddenly I noticed a girl about 2 stairs behind me trying her hardest to guess where I am going next so she can try and go around me. I freak out because someone is there watching me, I try to hurry along, totally miss a stair so I have to hop up 2 steps without falling down, and then I crash into the railing and fall down a step anyway, nearly knocking a toddler down the stairs. It's like no matter what I do, when I am not in the company of those I already know, I am a fool. A vacant, day-dreamy, clueless fool. The problem is definitely exacerbated when I am alone and concentrating on myself, rather than the company of others. I tend to laugh out loud when no one is around, or suddenly burst out into song, or start muttering to myself. I always feel transparent, yet at the same time I am a sore thumb sticking out in the crowd and everyone notices me in some way, but no one understands it or accepts it. The only time I do not feel like this is when I am drunk or high, because then everyone is a bit more strange and bold and accepting. It's been 22 years, and I still am not used to myself. I think so much, so often, about so many different levels and elements of myself and life and everything in existence, that I almost forgot that I am in fact, existing right now. And when I suddenly remember that I am here, right now, in real life, and a man is asking to take some books from me and he's looking upset, because he doesn't know why I am looking right through him, it all becomes perfectly clear that maybe I am not cut out for this whole human thing. If I wan't a human, and was instead a shirt, maybe I could have someone iron out all the wrinkles and imperfections. But I'm not a shirt. For now I feel like a discounted pair of socks at a clothing store, with the sticker "slightly irregular" slapped on the label. I think the subject for this post explains it all, really. The vacant oddity, the one-of-a-kind, the totally disasterous, but always surprising life and mind of Jamie Lynn Strange. 6 comments|post comment

Congratulations, You've Become What You Wanted [28 Jul 2006|01:39am] [ mood | optimistic ] [ music | cats<3 ] There is something about the mountains that pull me. Massive on the horizon they are both somehow near and endlessly far. At times I look at the dark, pointed caps of the peaks furthest in the distance and though they are in plain sight, my mind cannot fathom how far away they actually are. It is these distant peaks that I always long for and wish to travel to and explore. The place most unattainable is always what my heart ultimately drives me towards. Sometimes I find myself wishing for this utopia as the sun starts its journey westward and my farthest peak is a misty grey against the intense orange and reds and wispy clouds. When the sun is at its most intense fire it lights up every corner of the landscape golden, as if heaven were the horizon and my peak, home. I watched the sun begin it's descent towards the mountainess horizon in Magnolia with the perfect skyline of Seattle skyscrapers and the Needle directly across from the sun as the Puget Sound illuminated golden from the sun. I watched it turn to blackness in West Seattle as I ate Indian food and sipped blue alcohol from a martini glass in a bar window. As we pulled away, I vowed that not illness, not business, nor death would ever drive me from this place. Indeed I have found my niche. A bright abyss in which I could fall and keep falling and never have the urge to look back up. 2 comments|post comment

No Surprises [10 Jul 2006|02:18am] [ mood | misunderstood, unknown, alone ] Sometimes I feel so alone in my beliefs, my interests, my matters of heart and mind, that I think it was a mistake I was born at all. To find someone as inspired as I by anything but this which is all around us every day, is all that I dream of. It is all that I dream. post comment

BEWARE THE CREEPY PERSON!! [24 May 2006|07:57pm] [ mood | headachey ] [ music | Dresden Dolls -- Girl Anachronism ] I've made a list of weird things about me. If you really want to know me, you must first know these things. Pet Peeves: people speaking to me while I have headphones on. (BIG no-no.) having to repeat what I said a second time, because whoever I am talking to isn't listening. skeptics trying to throw their boring viewpoints into any of my experiences running late. I will leave hours early, if necessary. having my neck touched. I get very skittish and furious if you come near my neck. I think I was strangled in a past life or something. Smells: LOVE the smell of skunk the smell of gasoline the smell of permanent markers HATE the smell of rubber gloves the smell of metal. If I touch a doorknob or metal obect, forget it. The smell embeds itself into my hands and I will jump off a bridge if I can't wash my hands and get it off immediately the smell (and taste) of mushrooms, because they smell of metal to me the smell of wet dog cats breath cigarettes. Oh MAN do I hate this smell. HATE IT. It brings back instantly some very devastating, violent memories of a troubled childhood Textures: I despise the texture of newspaper, or any kind of paper, really. It makes my hands sweat and tingle and I feel like I am slipping into madness. I really don't like the ink on newspapers either. I hate how it gets on my hands, which are already and sweating and tingling from the paper I hate having chalk or powder on my hands Rubber/latex gloves. Condoms are evil to the touch, too. I hate the texture of leather. I get the sweaty tingly hands when sitting on leather couches and stuff Sounds: I hate the sounds of vacuum cleaners, it gives me anxiety. I hate the sounds of someone hammering nails. It makes my eyes blink involuntarily each time they hit the nail. I hate it when people sneeze. It's such an unpleasant sound. It gives me chills and makes my nerves go crazy. I hate the sound of high-heeled shoes. Weird quirks and obsessive issues: I cannot share dairy. If you lean over or breathe on my milk, cheese, eggs, or ice cream, I cannot eat it. It makes me physically ill. If I have a dairy product, I usually request someone stay a good 3 feet away from me. This also counts for milk substitutes, ie rice/soy milk. I get weird about pizza, mainly because of the dairy issue. If pizza is exposed to the air too long, I cannot eat it...because too much air has touched it. :/ I can't eat too much butter, because it develops something I call "The Taste" it is a metallic taste in the back of my throat. My senior year in high school I got "The Taste" for 3 months straight, during which everything I ate or drank tasted of the "The Taste" and the air I breathed tasted of "The Taste". I refused to eat for those 3 months unless starvation drove me too. This was an infamous issue in high school. All my friends knew of it and I lost lots of weight. Dirt under my nails makes me scream Nothing gives me more pleasure in life than squeezing blackheads. If you have a blackhead on your face, I would love to squeeze it for you. I love finding split ends in my hair. They fascinate me. If you think you have split ends, I would like to find them for you. I can't drink too much water, because I associate it with being hungover, and instantly feel queasy. I like rubbing Elmer's Glue on my hands, waiting for it to dry, and then peeling it off like it's layers of skin. Fears (however irrational): injuring my leg and having a distinct limp for life. If someone limps, I can't look at them. It sends paralyzing fear down my spine. I think I had a limp in a past life. Maybe that's why someone was able to strangle me... having the back of my heel sliced with a knife being stabbed in the back...like literally stabbed, with a knife. falling from a great height and catching my fingers on a road sign to stop my fall (stop sign, speed limit sign etc) and having them be sliced off. (I have NO idea where this one came from, but it's something I think about often since the age of 5 or so.) heights. Anything above 6 feet. spiders being buried alive being burned alive dentists cilantro meteors, comets, asteroids... ANYTHING that can hit this earth, knock us off our gravitational pull and send us into the sun... or away from the sun to freeze to death. nuclear/atomic bombs tornadoes volcanoes swimming in the ocean and seeing a whale swimming beneath me the ocean at night. I was told once that mermen come out of the sea at night and snatch children off the beach and it's sort of stuck with me.. Perspective: I see odd numbers as male and dark in color. Even numbers are female and light in color (this is why I hate even numbers, because I have a natural dislike for females). I see every number as a different color. I see sounds as colors, constantly. When I walk around in the city, my mind and vision is always a mess of color bursts from the different sounds. Music is incredibly powerful to me and one of the most important aspects of my life, because it's almost a hallucinatory effect - the melodies all send out bursts of different colors in waves towards me. It's like being on drugs or feeling out of body. A therapist of mine tested me as having synesthesia for the above reasons.. What thinks you of me, now? 63 comments|post comment

Motionless [15 May 2006|07:54pm] [ mood | apathetic ] [ music | ceramic rumblings ] I still haven't shaken this funk. Emily slept over last night. We drank some alcohol and watched a few episodes of 24 and Spaced. This morning we watched The Vanishing and headed into town to have some lunch and everything. It was a nice time, but still it did not shake me out of whatever state I am in. Usually Em makes the world better for me, but this time it just wasn't enough. I would lapse into really sad, quiet moments where I just wasn't enjoying myself. I wonder why? Ah well. Today Dean is at work, while I have the day off. I thought I would take some time to try and inspire myself by going for a walk with my camera and music. But no matter what I snapped photos of, I was not inspired, and so everything was mediocre. I have this incredible longing to see beauty and be mesmerized by the world, but the familiar surroundings of these Glen Rock streets are just not enough anymore. They are stale composites of a now weary past. I feel like I just cannot take anything else in from this area, anymore. In quick flashes I could feel some creativity brewing. I would catch a long trail of light on the pavement or hear leaves rattling together in the breeze and for a moment I would remember why I am so in love with this world. My constant desire for nature and sky and light is insatiable. It makes my body numb with possibility, freedom, and dreams. But here I don't find any of these inspirations that liberate me. I feel like here is a dead end and I am always scrounging for something less mind-numbing, but never really obtaining anything spiritually and emotionally satisfying. Sometimes I wish that I was the wind, filling every space and crevice of the earth, breathing life into everything. And sometimes I wish I was instead the leaves in this wind, whispering secrets and stories of the things I have seen. And sometimes I desire to be the trees with their roots deep in the ground, willingly stationary and wise and helpful to all the creatures and all the elements. And then sometimes I just desire to be the earth, and be everything that life is and needs to prosper. And then I remember that I am actually all of these things, in reality. Everything is the same thing. And it gives me joy and it gives me peace, and gives me creative wings to rise above everything that weighs me down so, like these past few days. And then I remember that I have no one around me daily to tell these things to, or at least not anyone who has felt this connection as well and is willing to share their own knowledge with me. So I fall silent. And so do the leaves. 5 comments|post comment

Noo Hoo [12 Oct 2005|09:51pm] [ mood | tired ] [ music | System of a Down -- Violent Pornography ] I've become really bored with myself lately. REALLY bored. I don't feel anything about my appearence makes me interesting. And I miss being outwardly interesting in some way. It used to give me some sort of pleasure. Inside this lj-cut you will see more of me than you ever wanted to all at once. And no, I don't mean I'm naked. ;) But I would say there's a good 40 or so pics of me looking completely different from the one above and below each. I am at a loss for what to do with myself. And out of curiosity, wanted to make a poll to see which "phase of me" you guys liked best. I won't use it to judge anything for the future, but I was just curious how people viewed me in different stages of my teen years. If you actually make it through those then...wow. ( ::IF LOOKS COULD KILL:: ) Poll #589325 If Looks Could Kill Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All Answering with the number next to each, which phases or phases of me did you prefer, looking at hair and style? View Answers Why did you like these photos best? View Answers 14 comments|post comment

I'm On My Way to God Don't Know or Even Care [18 Oct 2004|04:44pm] [ mood | hungry ] [ music | a game of Pikmin ] Comment to be added, kids. A fresh start was needed indeed. //Jaaaaam 85 comments|post comment

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