Yaaaaawwwwwwnnnnnn

I took the SAT today. Then I went to a graduation, followed by a graduation after party. After that, I went to a party celebrating one of my more amazing friends. I left my house at about seven twenty this morning and did not come back until after midnight...that means that I spent a good seventeen hours on the go today...Needless to say, I am very tired, and totally ready for bed. However, I owe you guys a post, so here's something!

I realized something very important while talking to a good friend of mine today. Writing poems that can also be songs will make my poetry SO much better. That is not to say that poems without set rhyme and rhythm are not good poems, only that using those tools in such an unforgiving medium as songwriting will teach me the skills I need to then write BETTER poems without set rhyme or rhythm.
That's why, this summer, I'm going on a song writing frenzy. I'll probably be humming tunes at random times all throughout Germany (Will, Greg, bear with me). I've even got some plans to take poems I've already written and make them into songs. I'm really excited about doing that, especially with poetry that I'm not 100% happy with. This will give me a great chance to look over my old work and critique it while still keeping myself amused
When poetry drops from your mouth like drops of water, making rings in the air, you know it is good poetry. THAT is why I am doing this. Poetry is at its highest state when it is spoken aloud. Song is just the next step from that.
Wish me luck! (Again)

Thing to be grateful for today: The people who inspire me.

Sing It Out

Well, for fear that Lauren will put a bullet in my face, I'm going to write about Glee today. Glee pretty much rocks. It is honestly one of my absolute favorite shows on television right now. I appreciate how much of a stereotype I am fulfilling by liking this show so much, and I'm ok with that. The show, at its center, has a beautiful message and empowering.
The message of Glee has been the same since day one; everybody is an outcast on some level. At first glance, that's a really depressing message, but its deeper than the surface level. If everyone is an outcast, then no one is, and that means that everyone has at least ONE thing in common other than being human. We can all say that, at some point or another, we've felt rejected and "too different". We're all a bit quirky and have things that many people do not like about us, and that's actually very beautiful. Because we are all like that, we can all relate to the message of Glee and to one another.
I know that this is a bit weird, but one reason I like Glee is that I am the kind of person who desperately wishes it was socially acceptable to burst out into song to express how you feel. Those of you who know me very well at all know that I'm a very expressive person, but that doesn't mean I always feel comfortable being so expressive and clear with my emotions. I think that part of that is because I am uncomfortable feeling real, burning anger. Social norms require that we, to a certain extent, bridle in our feelings. Song though, song lets you be just who you are, no questions. One of my best outlets for anger is singing. When you're so pissed you feel like you might burst it can be really amazing to turn on a wild, loud song and sing until you're mouth is dry and your lungs are empty. Glee lets me pretend for forty-five minutes that it's ok to open my mouth and sing out my feelings.
Glee is actually a very magical show. The writing can be lackluster, but it's normally pretty good, and all of the characters are great. The actors and actresses on Glee are all very talented and know just how to express what it is to be living in adolescence. When I watch Glee, I often feel that the characters are like overblown versions of the people I know and love. It inspires me and let's me feel like I'm not the only one who sings when life is too much.

I know that I've been writing about Glee this whole time, but I need just one moment for another show that I love, Heroes. Today, it was announced that, after four seasons, Heroes has been canceled. Let's all please take a moment of silence for one of my absolute favorite shows. Heroes plays into an essential part of who I am, my fascination with superpowers. I've loved the idea of having a superhuman ability since I was very small, and still am. I think about it all the time. Sometimes, I'll be in a totally every day situation and wonder what it would be like if I had some ability or another.

Thing to be grateful for today: Theater

Identifying Times

I had an interview with a really lovely alumnus of my high school today about sexual orientation and gender identity today and it really got me thinking. Our society is so obsessed with identities, and it's incredibly difficult not to get wrapped up in this obsession, I know that I do. Here's an experiment: Go to a coffee shop and observe the people there. Notice how you classify them. When I've done this, I've been intrigued by what information I think classifying, and what information I don't. Right off the bat, I notice that, if someone's white, I'll describe their hair color or clothes, maybe their weight, but if they aren't, their race becomes an immediate classifier. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just interesting. It really opens my eyes to how I see the world, and how I suspect others do as well. We create a little box that is "me" and we put it inside of a larger box filled with the people who are like us and we label it "us", and everyone else is in a box labeled, "them". Sometimes people use these boxes to choose friends, or spouses, sometimes they use them to justify war. Let me clarify, it is bad when we allow the boxes to rule our lives past first impressions. I understand the need our brains have to classify and identify with things, but when we begin to fill our social circles with "us" people, and no "them", we lose a very valuable thing, the people who can teach us the most. Not only that, but we limit our own ability to grow. We've put ourselves into labels that are constricting and unforgiving that tell us we are this or that, and that we will always be this or that, and if we try to be otherwise or to expand what "this" and "that" means we will be classified as a "them", and some people are so afraid to lose their "us" that they are willing to contort and shrink into their "us" box.
I know that, personally, I have a tendency to take identities that have classified me as a "them" and make them such a huge part of my facade that I fool myself and many of the people around me into thinking that it's the most important part of me, and that just isn't the case. I've realized in the past week or so that it doesn't MATTER, that no one should have to say that they are this or that or the other simply because it's more comfortable for society, and no one should take a single part of their identity and make it who they are, because as humans, we are MANY things. Think about it, what if, as a blue-eyed man, I went around talking about how "blue-eyed" I was, and people started to think of me as "that blue-eyed guy"! Wouldn't everyone think that that was absolutely ridiculous? How can anyone expect to say that because they are gay/straight/lesbian/bisexual/male/female/transgender/gender-queer/black/white/Muslim/Christian/Taoist/Buddhist/Unitarian-Universalis/whatever that that is all they are? Everyone is so many things! And why should you have to say or think you are any of those things? Certainly not because people are more comfortable if you fit into their boxes! That's absurd!
So, I say, take who you believe you are, whatever that may be, and not what anyone says you are, and fearlessly be "I".

Tomorrow, I think I'll talk about some knitting.
Thing to be grateful for today: Interviews

Beginning a New Year

So, I know that I'm a little late to the game with this, in that it is now the third of January, and not the first, but today I was challenged to, as a writing exercise, start a blog and write a post every day for a whole year. I'm rather ecstatic about the idea, so here we are. Who knows if my attempts to network this blog will come to fruition and give me a nice amount of followers, or if I'll basically be writing for a few friends, either way, this is a documentation of the next year of my life at least. I don't yet know if I'll actually stop on January the third of next year, or if I'll keep it up after that, I suppose that depends on how I feel at the time. Either way, this should be a very entertaining and enlightening experience.
I'd like to say now, that the name of this blog is in fact "Ink In Pieces" (Not "Pisces" like the astrological sign, for the record, I'm a Capricorn. "Pieces" as in "piece of pie").Now, I choose the name "Ink In Pieces" for a few reasons. The first reason being that I had so many things to write about that I couldn't pick a single topic to be in the title of the blog, so I choose something that had to do with writing, which will always be a part of the blog. The second reason was that, for me, that is what this blog is about. It is about finding my writing style, my "ink", in little pieces as the year goes on and I refine my writing and find my voice. Right now, I worry that my writing is too formal, that it seems very stern and distant. I'm trying to become more personal and to invite playfulness into my words. The third reason I gave it the name that I did, was because I'm using this blog as a sort of coming of age story for myself, and so I'm hoping to find myself in the pieces that I write. I've just turned seventeen, and have, once again, begun to redefine myself, and I'm trying to use this blog as a tool in doing so.
It's a new year, a new age for me, and I can feel that it's going to be a good one. While riding home from watching the fireworks ring in the new year a few nights ago, I realized that I felt a palpable difference in the world. It was as if someone had taken the radio frequency that runs through my bones and changed it. It felt as if this year, this age, is going to be a good one. I believe that right now, the world is standing tip-toe on a single point, and we could either fall or find the balance we need to stay up-right, and this change I felt made me believe that, in this year, balance is possible for all of us, not only on a personal level, but on a global one. Come what may, I plan to be a part of it.
Now, who am I? I am a seventeen year-old aspiring writer, skilled knitter (wannabe spinner), stone-carver, hippie, environmentalist, equal-rights activist, pescatarian. I am a free-thinking, God-searching, stubborn, idealistic young man. I believe that there is a road for all of us. I believe that life is challenge, consequence, and reward. I believe that life is a search for ourselves. I believe that life is a classroom in which the world is filled with our teachers, and we can either learn their lesson and progress as human souls, or we can shun what we are being taught and regress. I believe that life is what we make it.
Now, this is only an introduction, but I want to start with a take-off, so I want to give you a bit of what is to come...

• Writing (A lot of pondering and rhetorical questions are probably in order).
• Knitting, one of my many loves and obsessions
• Whatever comes my way
• Lists, another one of my many loves and obsessions
• Opinions on movies, politics, religion, music, knitting, other blogs, life, and people
• More Opinions

I think that that pretty much covers it, so let's see here, I'd like to include some of all of that in my first post. We already have numbers 1,3, 5, and 6 covered in the first few paragraphs. So, let's move on to knitting (If you don't knit, you don't have to read my gushing about my latest project, you can just skip down to the next item on the list):
Here's what I'm working on right now.





















It's a cardigan, though you may not be able to tell from that picture, because it is all wrapped up in itself. Behind it is the rest of the yarn that I'll need to finish it up. The pattern is "Dave" by Jane Ellison. Here's the Ravelry link. So, I was leery of calling it a cardigan, simply because that seemed very feminine, and it's for me, however, I was told by a friend to look up "Cardigan" on wikipedia before I decided that. You learn something new every day don't you? Anyway, it's officially my cardigan, so I'm pretty excited. I cast it on on the last day of 2009, but didn't properly begin to knit it until January first. Here's a better shot of the whole thing.



I have eight inches of length now, and at 196 stitches per row and around 5 rows per inch of length I've knitted approximately...7840 stitches in the last three days (Though, I guess to be technical, I could say that I've purled half of those, and knit the other half). I'm knitting it in Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed...it's pretty awesome yarn.

Now that I've covered knitting, I have one more thing to talk about...lists. Personally, I like lists of ten, which seemed appropriate, given this list is for 2010. So here they are, my
GOALS FOR 2010

1. Blog every day, or at least make sure something new is on the blog every day.
2. Knit (and complete) at least two sweater-type garments and my blanket.
3. Complete one alabaster sculpture (stone-carving is a lost passion of mine, I'm hoping to reclaim it).
4. Finish the first draft of my play by June 1st (I'll write more about that later).
5. Become a better writer.
6. Become happier with my body (I don't hate it, but I see it as a work in progress).
7. Face at least one major fear.
8. Carpe Diem (This goes on a lot of my lists, it's an important one).
9. Learn five new skills that I will use for the rest of my life.
10. Find a different thing to be grateful for every day.

Every time I complete an item on the list I'll let you know.

All right, well, I hope I haven't bored anyone to death, and I hope that you keep reading, because I plan on trying to make every day as interesting/funny/poignant/thoughtful as I can.
Peace.