small towns

When you're growing up in a small town You know you'll grow down in a small town There's only one good use for a small town You hate it - and you know you'll have to leave

Lou and I are both from Long Island, (Freeport and Hempstead respectively) but I only relate to this song because I live in North Carolina.

When I moved to North Carolina I felt like the whole state was a small town and I desperately wanted to get out and move back to what I felt was my real home. But my feelings on the subject have evolved significantly.

I guess in some ways im lucky now I can enjoy the small towns as much as the big cities. I love New York and Chicago and DC— but I also love Boone and Black Mountain. Though it probably has something to do with the fact I don’t live there.

I love Boone, it feels like such a special space.

The nice thing about being human is that your feelings and ideas can evolve. You don’t have to be the same forever.

There’s a cafe called FARM it’s a pay what you want cafe, and at first I felt weird about going in because in my head it’s like “this is for people who are truly in need” but then I went in and saw mostly students and there was a man in the corner playing guitar. I recognized one as Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” the people at the counter were really nice. I got a salmon and some vegetables and a cup of tomato soup. The music filled the air and everyone was merry and joyful. I was facing the gorgeous it was just filled with life and it made me really happy.

It makes me want to go to the library everyday of my life and study everything in the world. Continue working on my French and Japanese

My zines are me trying to build self knowledge.

After FARM I just go to the Watauga Library and chill. While I’m there I see a book I read years ago: Blake Boles’ Better Than College

punk and unschooling were probably the most inspirational things in my life when i was younger (i know that sounds corny but that's just how i feel) and one of them led to the other. Unschooling was this idea that children could pretty much decide their own curriculum— they didn’t need the fucking government to tell them what to learn, i found the philosophy when I was very much entrenched in internet punk. I think unschooling is a big reason why i am the way i am— i mean i fucking hated middle school and high school. But i do think that it’s important to just be in spaces with people older than you when you’re surrounded by folks of your same generation they kind of reinforce your beliefs.

I sit and think. Maybe if i sit here long enough I’ll figure all of it out. Being in the library inspired me to go and get a new notebook. This is a very frequent feeling I get, for some reason I just love the feeling of a new notebook.

I take the bus to dollar general I just like recognizing when people are nice, it’s important for me to write about it. The bus drive missed my stop, i tell him to just stop at the next stop but he tells me hes sorry he missed my stop and that it’ll take longer to walk back to the stop than him driving around the loop and hell drop me across the street from the dollar general. So i go to dollar general and buy my notebook and leave and walk against the roaring wind yet again. It's so windy but it's really nice

I go to swim in the pool and I get maybe 15 minutes before the maintanence man comes in and sudden;ty im very self conscious, then all of a sudden two whole families come into the poool. I just learned how to swim two years ago at 24 because, to put it diplomatically, my parents weren’t GREAt parents but they did the best they could. I don’t swim very well, I need to build my stamina and confidence. I leave the pool and take another shower and then get ready to go to the bar.

Lillys is probably my favorite bar in Boone. I sit and drink at the bar and listen to music.

Sometimes i do wish i could go back to school, but as long as it’s expensive as fuck i don’t think it’ll happen. I don’t think I would go forEnglish or art, i think id probably

When i was in elementary school I really did think id go to a school in new york, most likely hofstra (the university shared a parking lot with our elemenary school) when i moved to North Carolina i realized that was never, ever going to happen for someone like me

My experience of the south is definitely very different from the north. In New York I never held open doors for people, I would never say yes ma’am to anyone or smile at people but In the south those small gestures are very meaningful. Even when I go back to New York I return to my programming: avoid eye contact, stay stone faced, mind your business. People can be kind, there has been more than once that ive seen people help mothers pick up their strollers on the stairs at a stop, but the unpredictability

It feels nice to walk through that is something that makes me

If i just had enough time i could figure it all out. What direction I want to take my life, how I want to move forward. What are my goals?

I wish i could just sit and think forever

I wish I could read every book in the entire world, and learn every language (but especially French and Japanese) I wish I could travel all over the world and play music and write funny interesting things, not just about my life but about other things too. But I don’t FEEL it as intensely. Also I don’t feel sad as intensely. Last year when I didn’t go snowboarding for my birthday I was deathly depressed. This year I didn’t even care I didn’t even travel for my birthday and that’s usually what I like to do anything. But this year I’m like— whatever. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. I got this grant and I know

I think I like my little town, truthfully I don’t think I could ever really love Charlotte but I appreciate a lot about it. I walk the tightrope between being hyper local but loving

These people don’t even know who you are or care about you and yet you have the feeling that you have to tell them who you are Disgusting it comes in handy to not have a self image. a funny anecdote, i didnt think that i was short until i was in high school. people who have met me are probably like how did you not

I never know what the fuck is going on in North Carolina. its so fucking hot when i get there but later it was so fucking cold. Oh there will be NO snow.

It is so hot, and there are so many students

DEAD MAN WALKING I’m just trying to follow the example of Jesus! I almost busted out laughing. It reminds me of something I’ve been thinking about a lot: the paradox of tolerance. You can’t tolerate the intolerant and killing someone is about the most intolerant act you can think of. People only remember the gentle Jesus, they don’t remember when he fucking threw tables over and had his psychotic break over people selling shit in the temple. He could be indignant. He wasn’t Gandhi. He was Jesus, son of a wrathful god of the Old Testament. But most people don’t really know anything of the Bible anyways. That is not the case in this movie. Most people know the Bible but they argue over its interpretation. Typical. But that’s what rebel without a cause culture creates. Kids who just kill normies because they don’t have any values. Narcissists who only care about themselves and their status. They have no idea who their true enemy is. This is of course what I’m thinking as I watch the movie.

He didn’t kill anybody! But did he rape anybody? So does Susan Sarandon embody Jesus in this film? I think she does. Infamously Jesus was friends with the outcasts- the freaks and the whores.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sean penn in a film and I really don’t like him from the things he’s done (specifically to Madonna) this movie did not make me like him anymore, quite the opposite, but damn if that boy can’t act. Kelly and amanda Alice In Chains - No Excuses Shigeo - the world