Saturday, October 10, 2015

The Moon Was Red

I've been trying to expand my writing skills, and a lot of times I'll think of certain scenes that would work great in a book, but when I sit down to actually sit down to write the book that is kind of in my head, I'm not able to connect the scenes into a seamless story. Also, sometimes situations happen to me that I think are too weird or incredible not to write down, but they wouldn't really be able to take up a whole blog post. Anyways, this is just an experimentation with writing a story in third person, so if I think of more disjointed scenes, I'll throw them here, but I'll still write the old style as well. Obviously you'll be able to tell from what point of view I'm writing it from. 


She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders to fend off the night’s chill and the dampness of the grass. The moon was turning a deep blood red, which was oddly beautiful, yet creepy at the same time. He was standing next to her with a pair of ridiculous binoculars, trying to see the phenomenon more closely. She looked up at him, trying to be discrete, but he caught her staring and smiled at her, offering the binoculars so she could see as well. She attempted to find the moon in the sky, which shouldn’t have been hard as it was large and red, but apparently that was too difficult a task for her, and she started laughing. “I can’t find it,” she giggled, “My glasses are too thick, I can’t see anything through this contraption.” He came up behind her, putting his large hands over her cold, small ones and tried to show her how to make the very simple binoculars function correctly. She stopped breathing. She could feel the warmth of him so close to her she could practically hear his heart beating. As she let out a shaky breath, she started laughing to hide any chance that he could see the effect he had on her. Laughing and looking through binoculars don't mix very well, so she shoved them back at her before he could do something else to make her heart beat faster, and ducked her head. She was so thankful that it was cold outside and it was mostly dark, so that her flushing cheeks would be hidden from his incredibly blue eyes. She stepped back from him and adjusted her blanket to mask her nervousness, and he shot her a grin as he sat back down next to his girlfriend. 

-k

The Problem with Starting Over

I’m in a place right now where I am slowly building a new network of friends, a new image for myself, and a new list of what is important to me and how I should go about making sure those things happen. And I do think that’s really cool. But, it is a little strange. Like, this past summer, I had at least one grad party to go to almost every weekend, and near the end of my time in Wisconsin, it was even more than that. I got kind of spoiled with the idea of spending lots of time with friends all the time, constantly going out and going to museums or restaurants or just hanging out. And then I came here.

Don’t get me wrong, I do actually have a decently sized group of close friends here. Because everything is so compressed, like the friend-making process itself, I’ve gotten really close with my roommates and the girls on my floor and even some guys upstairs. I hang out with them a lot. But then there comes weekends like this one where they all have places to go and people to hang out with because they are only making additions to the friends they already have, not substitutions. I spend a lot of time by myself right now. And it’s not because the people around me just ditch me or anything… a lot of times they just have things like work or family or friend obligations to take care of. I totally understand that. It’s just that right now I’m unemployed, I don’t have a ton of homework, and I don’t really have a ton of friends outside of my apartment. So even though I know I’m not as important to them, like I’m very aware that I’m not the center of their world or obligations, they’re kind of the center of mine, and I’m not really certain how to deal with that.

-k

Friday, October 2, 2015

Please Do Your Laundry

I kind of have the habits of a teenage boy. I’m not completely disgusting, I always have clean hair and I don’t ever keep rotten food or anything in my room. However, I don’t do my laundry every single week, I sometimes go to class without brushing my hair, and once in a while during the summer or a school break, I will wear the same clothes three days in a row. I like looking pretty and put together, but at the same time, as soon as I come home, I’ll rip off whatever decent pair of pants I’m wearing and scramble into a pair of pajama shorts. If I’m not going to go anywhere where I need to impress a person, I often won’t wear makeup, or I’ll just put a tiny bit of concealer and mascara on. I guess to put it nicely, I’m very low maintenance.
This kind of bit me in the butt this morning. I had a pretty important job interview today. It was technically a mock interview, but it was still kind of a big deal. I’ve had to jump through a lot of hoops to get to this mock interview, and I was kind of nervous about it. I woke up three hours before the interview, leisurely made coffee and ate a protein bar, and watched the very grown up show “Zoey 101” while waking up. I took a shower, shaved my legs (this is a very big accomplishment for me. I hate shaving my legs. I will do anything to avoid it), and I actually had the time to put lotion on, which I never make time for and I always walk around with white scratch marks all over my legs because they’re so dry. Then I decided to throw a load of laundry in quickly before I left, just because I had a little bit of extra time and I thought I would be super responsible and kill two birds with one stone. I was going to do a load of whites and my makeup at the same time, and wow, I’m a swell adult. So I’m doing my makeup, taking a little extra time with it, even seeing if today one of those days when I could rock red lipstick was. It was, in fact, one of those days. I was feeling super feminine, and I looked pretty hot, to say so myself. I had about 15 minutes to get dressed before I needed to head to my interview, and I was feeling pretty good. I went into my closet to grab a bra, and that’s when doom fell.

I HAD NO BRAS.

I don’t own a lot of bras. Because I hadn’t done laundry in a couple of weeks, they had all ended up in the wash and now they were all IN THE WASHING MACHINE, SOPPING WET. I pretty much had a panic attack. I didn’t have enough time to dry my wet bras. I couldn’t borrow any of my roommate’s, cuz I have the biggest boobs in the apartment. I couldn’t, like, wear a bikini top instead, because for some reason they do not fit. I don’t understand. I am a petite, 5’2’’ girl. I should fit into an XXL swimsuit top. I wasted 10 minutes running around the apartment and my closet like a crazy person, praying that I had forgotten to wash one bra, that I would be saved and the heavens would shine upon me again. I may be a bit of a mess of a teenage boy at heard, I am NOT boyish in any sense of my form. I can’t go out in public with no bra like some lucky girls can. These babies will float up into the stratosphere if I let them loose. But, I had no choice.

SO I WENT TO THIS VERY VERY IMPORTANT JOB INTERVIEW WITH NO BRA.

I put on a cami with a little sport-bra like thing sort of built inside. It honestly didn’t do much to help, but at least the beasts were somewhat contained. I threw on a pencil skirt, looked in the mirror, and almost screamed. The girls were not tamed as usual. I looked like a hippie woman trying out for a lawyer form, but still not wanting to conform to the laws of society. Luckily, I have this highly structured blazer in my closet, and when I threw that on, I looked somewhat like a human being instead of a cow with a swollen udder.

            So yeah, that was my day. The interview went really well. The woman kept telling me how cute I looked, so apparently the no-bra look works for me. It was just one of those crazy stories that I needed to write down for all of eternity. I, Kira Lange, went to a professional interview without a bra on. I usually can’t even stand going to bed with no bra on, and I went to this job interview with no bra. And that, ladies, is why you do not have the habits of a teenage boy, and please, please do your laundry. 

-k