My new blog.

I like Tumblr.

(That link may not work. If that's the case, it's ramblesandsnippets.tumblr.com)

In 31 hours, I will be at work for Black Friday.

I've chosen to view it as an experience. I'm not mad that I have to be there at 2 in the morning. It's going to make for a good story, hopefully.

But I really don't get it. Even on non-mass shopping days, I don't get the consumerism that drives people to Best Buy in droves. I hate that I'm one of them sometimes.

Some days I like to empty my pockets of my phone and my ipod and just sit around with a book or a notebook and just not be consumed and enslaved by things. It's a really nice feeling.

I just realized the irony of the word "consumer". Consumers are people who buy things to fill their homes: TVs, video game systems, computers, stuff, stuff, stuff, and yet this stuff that they are supposedly "consuming" ends up consuming them. Interesting.

I need to be writing. I need to be writing. I need to be writing.

But instead I'm listening to sad songs and thinking about the girl who has broken my heart repeatedly over the last seven years. My first love.

I heard somewhere (did you tell me, Alli?) that you never get over your first love. And I certainly haven't. I always think I have. And then something happens, we just have this quiet moment together where things feel like they used to, and I'm back.

She was doing my hair for the play and singing. It felt like middle school. I felt safe and familiar and comfortable and just like that, I was in love with her again. The past three days I've wanted to be around her all the time. I can't function when I'm not.

And then last night after the play, she said we needed to talk about something.

"Tomorrow," she said, and my mind started spinning in stupid directions and I thought, "I can tell her. I can just mention it. Almost casually. 'I think I like someone. It might be you.' or 'You know how I said I used to like you? I still do. I actually love you.' Cliches. It's so true that you can't be original when you're in love.

And then today we went to have our pow-wow, and I was naively excited. Even if I didn't tell her, she would be telling me something that only I would know, like she used to with all her secrets, which I don't have the privilege of being sole owner of anymore. She was going to confide in me. Maybe we were going to be just like we used to be. When we spent every minute together, and called each other every day for hours.

But that's not how the universe works. If I ever had my chance with her, it's blown now. My fault, but partially hers too, though pointing fingers is pointless.

She told me about a guy. It's nothing serious; she just maybe thinks he might like her. But it still broke my heart, again. Because she was excited about it. At the chance it represented.

And I don't want to do this again. Every time I give my heart to her, she drops it, or loses it, or just throws it up in the air without even trying to catch it. I don't want to get obsessed with one extremely flawed girl AGAIN.

But I'm not happy unless I'm next to her. In on her jokes, hearing about her life, listening to her rant about her stupid french teacher.

But she likes boys. No matter how much false hope she gives me, no matter how hard I hold on to that stupid hope, no matter how much I wish...she isn't going to like me. Even if she is at all interested in girls, she doesn't like me like that. I'm just the one who's been with her through everything for seven years. And now, will have to be there with her for at least two years in college.

Jesus, how do my "quick blog posts" turn into long rants that are infinitely better written than anything in my novel? And they're never long rants about important things. Just my stupid heart, and how it gets fixated on people who can never return what I feel about them.

I'm not this mopey in real life. Or maybe I am.

(All I want right now is a hug. From her.)

NaNoWriMo

In approximately ten minutes, NaNo begins.

I'm nervous. And cold, but I think that just has to do with the fact that I'm wearing boxers and drinking a cold beverage.

But you know what? I think I just realized one of the reasons I love NaNoWriMo so much. One of the things I struggle with the most is feeling like a kid again, getting enthusiastic about things and approaching everything with excitement and wide-eyed wonder. And NaNo gives me that.

I mean, I feel like it's Christmas eve right now, only instead of Santa coming to give me gifts, I'm the one giving myself a gift, a little literary baby that will be born right from my fingertips in seven minutes.

That's all I've really got. I don't want to run out of words.

A Side Note

I just saw an amazing play. I was going to talk about it. And how much it affected me.

But instead I'm going to write a letter to a girl. Just because I need to get these words off of my chest so that maybe the feelings attached to them will float away.

Dear You,

I think that if you let me I could fall in love with you.

I wish that we could talk like we used to.

I wish you talked to me at all.

I forget about you sometimes. But when I remember you it just hurts, because I see that you're perfect for me but you obviously don't.

I'm crossing my fingers that our paths will cross again soon, and that when they do I become a permanent fixture in your life, and you in mine.

I'm sorry I wasn't whatever you needed me to be.

Sincerely, Chelsea

This wasn't meant to be sad. I just...really needed to put those words down.

Company.

So lately I've felt like people only want to be in my company for themselves.

What I mean is, they don't want to hang out with me. They just want company, and they don't care who it is. And so I'm just a stand-in for better company.

A few weeks ago I was uninvited to something because the girl who invited me just wanted someone to go with, and when she found someone else to go with her, she didn't need me anymore.

Now, my best friend, who I've been dying to hang out with, asked me to hang out. But only because she "needs something to do Friday night" because her boyfriend is going to a party she doesn't want to go to.

This, plus the idiotic decision by my theater teacher to put me in a position of power so that everyone in class hates me, really makes me feel disconnected from everyone.

And I really need to connect with someone right now.

I wish it was November.