The Girl In The Red LIpstick

The girl in the red lipstick does not have a name. You see her as she walks the halls every day alone. She does not speak because her brilliant blue eyes speak for her. They scream out Pain! They scream out  Agony! Sometimes, they scream out Help! No one ever answers, however. Every one stares at the girl with the painted red lips because she is different. Is it her black hair with streaks of blue? Is it her long, vibrantly painted nails? Her gothic ensembles that she dresses up in?
The girl in the red lipstick has a scar above her right eye. No one knows how it got there, but it begs for someone to listen to its story. Maybe she got it after falling off of her bike as a child. Maybe she was in a car accident. Maybe someone put it there.
Maybe someone should listen to the tales of the maiden with the red lips. Maybe she should make some one listen. Someone! Anyone! Everyone?
Maybe there's a reason the scarlet lipped girl does not speak. Perhaps she has tried and failed so she lets her appearance do the talking. Maybe her lipstick covers up another scar. Maybe her large sweaters cover up her body. Maybe her long hair covers up the pain in her eyes. Maybe her silence covers up the past.
The girl in the red lipstick walks the halls with no friends. She stands alone every day stares into a world where no one else may see. She is a vessel without a soul. She is an angel trapped in hell. The girl in the red lipstick does not have an identity. The girl in the red lipstick does not have a name.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote this poem a long time ago about a girl I saw at school every day. The portrayal above is not entirely true but was inspired by a real person. It is a poem and is meant to be taken as such.

10 min writing prompt.

The hall was silent until she heard a locker door slam behind her. Lost in thought, Marissa jumped. It was Jace. Shit. Crap.
She held her breath, as though it made her invisible to him. She knew all too well he remembered Friday night, even if he was drunk. Her invisibility trick had failed, and he approached her. It was her turn to face the music.
"So," he started out. "I guess Friday night was fun."
"Yeah," she replied, looking around for some kind of escape. "I guess."
He broke the awkward small talk. "Look, I'm so sorry. I don't really remember Friday night, but I do know we had sex. And I know I didn't wear a condom."
Subtlety had been thrown out the window at this point. "Look, forget it ever happened. It's so behind me."
Marissa never thought about the whole "protection or not" situation. She had been more focused on whether or not he would even remember her name after their one night stand, let alone what kind of procautions he took. She hadn't really thought about the consequences of unprotected sex. The only thing clogging her mind was that she was a shy Sophomore girl who wore one low cut shirt to a high school party and after two O'douls, lost her virginity to a wasted Senior boy.
 Before it even dawned on her that she could be pregnant, she felt a wave of nausea and ran to the bathroom. . .

"How I Met Your Mother" In class writing prompt.

I never really watched "How I Met Your Mother," but I'm pretty familiar with the generality of it. A sitcom about a wild gang of raunchy adult friends who live in the big city, blah blah blah. But I never really gave it a chance because, damn darn, it's pretty funny.
In this episode, the main male characters of the show discuss their future lives every time they watch the Star Wars Trilogy, which is every three years. During each imaginary flash forward, the men progressively in vision their lives getting better and better and possessing more money and more babies with their ever-pregnant wives. In reality, their lives generally do not get better. In some cases, they stay the same. IN other cases, they get even worse. The end of the episode, however, entails happy endings for all in the year 2015. One thing I can't get over about this show is that the character Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), who is the "ladies man" is actually gay in real life. All I can say about that is that he's one heck of an actor!

The C-Word!

As a member of the all brass Mustang Marching Band, I am all too familiar with the "c-word." This word, one which shall live in infamy, is despised among most people in general, including brass members. In fact, if you get caught being one of these, it may just end you in a "pep rally" (meaning you're in trouble!) with Mr. D, our band director. I don't like to think of myself as one of these, but lately, I've been feeling like I'm a big, fat one. That's right folks, a complainer.
I don't want to be one of those people who sit there and do nothing but complain about how hard his or her life is, because honestly, it's annoying to hear about. "Oh, I have to go work a three hour shift at McDonald's and go to volleyball practice and do twelve algebra II problems. Boo hoo hoo hooo..." That's lame. I don't, however, work three hour shifts at McDonald's. I will never work less than 7 hours at a time at Panera Bread. I'm not in volleyball, but I am in the Brass, which is A LOT more work than most would accredit for. And as far as algebra II? I get about 50 calculus problems a night. So there, I guess you can officially call me the c-word.
But something really cool happened to me the other night in a dream, and it's gonna sound really weird to explain. So, here goes nothing.
I was standing on a dock, next to this giant, blue lake. (Or maybe it was an ocean? It was a gargantuan body of water.) It was so peaceful and serene. There was not another living creature in sight, just me and this lake. All of a sudden, My band director, Mr. D, came out of no where yelling at me. It went something like, "You need to stay in line when you're prancing! You're horn angle is terrible! Watch your parade choreography!" I was a little shocked so I back off, but as soon as I did, my boss, Jen, stepped out from behind me and started yelling too. "Why is your drawer fifteen cents short? Did you FIFO the cream cheeses? There needs to be day dots in these syrups! Stock your cups!" I turned around only to find Mr. Abbey, my calc. teacher. "You don't know how to work your hundred and twenty dollar graphing calculator that you just got a week ago with sheer perfection? Three hundred homework problems for everyone." I'm pretty sure all my other teachers and managers were there too, even my dad, yelling at me to clean my car. And my room. And my bathroom. I got so overwhelmed, I jumped into the lake. Soon, I was floating weightlessly near the bottom of this water giant. It was silent, serene, relaxing. For once, nothing was expected out of me. I could just float. (Don't ask me how I managed to breathe?) So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, do I need a break? Am I running away from my problems? Do I need to go jump in a lake? Or, could it possibly be that I'm just being a big, fat c-word?

C-C-Career Path!!

     Hey all! Remember when I said I wanted to open up my own cafe named Carmelita's? Well, that was great and all, but now I'm totally headed in a completely polar opposite direction. Can you say, chemical engineer?
     Being a chemical engineer just sounds awesome for so many reasons. First of all, I LOVE CHEMISTRY. I went to science camp as a youngster and took college level pre-chemistry courses. I fell in love right then and there. I can remember we did this experiment where we mixed together different chemicals to produce different colors when set on fire. It was a demonstration on how fireworks worked. It was by far my favorite class.
     Now that I am old enough to take actual chemistry courses, I'm learning so much more. I was a little nervous when I first started the class, since it was described as being "academically rigorous," and it would be even scarier if I didn't have good, old Mr. Casey as my teacher! I mentioned Mr. Casey in my previous blog, and he has yet to have failed in entertaining me in class day by day. Every day just feels like a journey deeper into the world of chemistry. Cheesy as it sounds, it's true. His class really rocks my socks.
     Now let's talk about what a chemical engineer does! A chemical engineer takes the workings produced by a chemist and manufactures and produces it on a larger scale. He or she pretty much applies chemistry to the real world. There are countless job opportunities for this field of work, including some right here in Lima at the Husky Refinery. (But I HIGHLY doubt I will stay in Lima!) Chemical engineers are the highest paid out of all the engineer fields, and there is a current high demand for them. That means a decent paycheck! Ya know, they say money can't buy happiness, but money can buy a Monte Carlo. And that would make this girl pretty happy! :)

Red Canary of Death

Reading this really reminded me of a comic book. It had more pictures than anything, but just by looking at the pictures, you could really tell what was going on. The story was about a girl whose family was very separated and each led very independent lives.  They were all artists and spent most of their time alone working on their music or writings or drawings. The little girl told her story about growing up in this kind of environment and how she learned to kind of raise herself and learned to rely on herself for things instead of always having to ask someone for something. For example, in one of the panels, she talked about how she asked her mom to make her dinner because she was hungry and her mom kept saying something like, "Not now." or "In a minute." So she just made her own food and took from the whole experience how to be independent. I think her opinion on her childhood, however, was bittersweet.

In Class Writing Prompt 2

     Post-it notes are probably one of the best inventions ever made. I use them for a lot of things: when I'm reading for a class project, I'll use them as little bookmarks so I can remember what's important in the passage I'm reading. What's also great about these little inventions is that you can write on them guilt free. I have brought with me to class today, a teal book of these sticky notes. When you open this little hard-cover contraption, it's filled with a neat pallet of sticky-notes varying in different shapes and sizes. It's a rainbow of organization. I couldn't tell you what they taste like (Are post-it notes even non-toxic?). I don't even know if that would be safe. I guess I could tell you they smell like freshly cut paper. I can't really describe this smell, it's like the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil. No one can explain the odor, but everyone knows that smell from elementary school.
     I can, however, tell you the sound these post-it notes make when you tear them off of the pad. It makes something of a shlllllllllllllp noise.
     The cover feels glossy in my hands, almost like a hard-cover copy of a magazine. The inside, where all the post-it notes are feel smooth as well, but not as glossy. It's almost grainy, as paper tends to feel. They remind me of both reading and writing because they are useful to both.

In Class Writing Prompt 1

Am I afraid of writing and being creative? Have you read my blog?
I guess I'm not afraid of being creative. My whole seventeen years of being on this planet proves that I can be outgoing. I've won every art show I've ever entered. I've been first chair out of every band I've ever been in. And as far as writing goes, I'll just tell you that my junior high teacher once told me I was litterally the most intelligent student he's ever had. I'm most definitely not afraid to say what's on my mind and think, I dare say, outside the box. I guess I'm not really "afraid" of being creative, but am slightly scared of what people will think of my creativity. Everyone is afraid of being judged, right? I guess you can say that. I have the guts to put myself out there and strive for my creativity, but in the back of my head, I'm still the scared little third-grader giving her oral presentation to the class over the Louisianna Purchase. I'd like to think I possess genuine ingenuity. I'd like to think I'm a problem-solver and can fix the kinks out of everything. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can't. You win some, you lose some, right? Sometimes, I'll think of this completely creative idea, like a homemade cinnamon roll recipe (which is really good, by the way!) or an idea for a song to write on piano. And sometimes, like now, the creative juices are just NOT flowing and I end up babbling on and on like an idiot.

The Secondhand Bookseller

I felt so bad for the little girl in the story! If I had asked my mother for a book when I was younger, she would have bought me every book in the entire store. My mother loves to read and my family never had to worry about money growing up. In fact, just last week, my mother bought me two fairly expensive books at Sam's Club. Anyway, the little girl in the story (Called The Secondhand Bookseller) loves to read, but her Middle-Eastern family was much too poor to buy her books. She finds this little hole-in-the-wall second hand bookstore and befriends the book keeper. His name is Albert and he teaches the little girl to borrow books, instead of having to pay for them. She is estatic by her new discovery and her loves for reading grows deeper with every book she reads. Unfortunately, she spends time in prison later for speaking up in a science class. she was not only in prison, but tortured and almost excecuted! Now, however, she is free and currently living with her husbund in Canada. All I can say is, I'm happy to be an American who can freely speak and borrow books from the library anytime I choose!

WorkWorkWork!

You know what I did the other day? I got to sleep in. I remember that day, in fact, it was just Sunday. Sunday was my ONLY day off this week.
My day usually goes like this...
5AM - get up and go study at Panera. It has wi-fi.
8AM- (instert college class here)
11:23AM- Chemistry with Mr. Casey
12:18 - Lunch:)
12:48 - Study Hall
1:23 - Pre-Calc with Mr. Abbey
2PM- BANDBANDBAND!
3PM - Haul you-know-what home and get ready for work.
Ahhhhh. Work.
8+ hours straight of dealing with people. You know what kind of people I'm talking about right? Anyone who works in the restaurant business knows what I'm talking about. The people who can't just order. They have to modify everything on the flipping menu and can't just choose a side. Like, "Oh, I'll try the Poppyseed chicken salad. No blueberries on that. No oranges either. Extra pecans. Can I have my dressing on the side?  Oh, make that a pick-two. What's the Lemon chicken orzo soup like? Will I like it? Okay. Can I get a 99 cent pastry with that?" UGH. first of all, I, personally, don't know if you'll like the lemon chicken orzo soup. What am I supposed to say? "No, you won't like it." (?!) And NO! You have to get a beverage with your entree to make your pastry 99 cents! Do you know how many flipping times a day I have to explain what a baguette is?
I'm rambling. I apologize.