christina says i should update this thing right now.

so i am.
just a quickie.
things i'm loving right now:
Jesus.
Friends.
You.
Urban Rescue.
Burt's Bee's hand creme. the almond milk one.
that my jacket still smells like Clayton VanDoren.
that my God is a gracious God. Just sayin'.
the pleasant ache in my abdomen from doing the obstacle course yesterday.
chocolate malts.
sitting here with my puppy Sugar Baby.
that either Fox or TBS is always playing The Office.
The Fragrance...the band, you know.
the internet, because it helps me research the dukes of Leinster
the way snow feels in your hair.
my little sister Jamie, even though she doesn't read this.
the chill coming through the fireplace.
my RVCA shirt that my stepsister gave me.
that this time of life is the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.

Life is a beauty. It really is. I've only just begun to appreciate how many things in life are funny and surprising and how
fun it is to be alive, how truly blessed I am, through the valleys and atop the mountains. how much I have to be grateful for, what beautiful people I have been surrounded with, and what unbridled joy there is in my heart. it's true. life is too wondrous a thing to be sad.
love,
me

things i am loving right now.

1. You.
If you read this, that is.
2. The Black Keys.
Super sexy blues-influenced rockstuff? YES. I love "Everlasting Light".
3. Christmas lights.
I just love seeing them around. They are so pretty.
4. Curling my hair.


(I hope I just inserted a picture of Alessandria Ambrosio and not computer gobbledegook.) But yeah, I'm loving how those Victoria's Secret models do their hair. Big, voluminous curls--I wish I could do that in real life-I can't get my hair quite so fluffy and full. However, not such a big fan of those people marketing sex to young girls. If you ask me, you shouldn't wear underwear that says "I <3 French kissing" on the ass if you are under the age of sixteen. Because if you are twelve, you probably think French kissing involves chocolate freaking eclairs or something. Plus, with Miley Cyrus smoking salvia (REALLY? how lame can you get, Smiley Virus?) and making out with people in leather bras all the time, and Taylor Momsen not wearing pants and generally being a moron, I fear a lot of young girls are going to think they have to be sexy-underwear-wearing bimbos dancing skankily around their playground tetherball polls in order to get attention from the boys.
that was a run-on sentence.
all of that aside, if there is ONE thing I like about the multi-billion dollar VS, it is the hair and makeup for the models. Because it's actually very understated, pretty, glowing makeup and soft, effortless-looking hair. Doesn't have the same effect on me, because I am very pale. But I'm loving it right now.
5. My puppy, Sugar.
Because she is lying right beside me, all cuddly and cute. It's kind of pathetic on my part, but I think my best relationship is with Sugar. She doesn't judge me for ANYTHING, and she wants to be wherever I am. Ellen DeGeneres says that animals are the closest thing to God, because of how they love. I don't really think that's true--God loves unconditionally, of course, but He doesn't need us the way animals do. Animals are completely dependent upon us, and sometimes I honestly think that's why they love us so.
6. Christmas Socks.
mine have cacti on them and say Feliz Navidad.
You know you are jealous.
7. Taking life slowly.
The past year has been a fever dream, fraught with euphoria, anxiety, and all kinds of stuff that I don't really need anyways.
8. Fancy Christmas Teas.
I love Celestial Seasonings' Nutcracker Sweet tea. Tastes of cinnamon and almonds.
9. My friends.
They are all such heavenly creatures, I love them.
10. My family.
I love them all too.
11. Gold jewelry.
Dunno why, for years I didn't like it, But now it's grown on me.

That's all for now. Bye-bye.

people ask me all the time...

....about my hair. i have some disappointing news for you. it's really not that interesting.
i've been growing it out for about four years. ish. i can't remember. everyone on my dad's side of the family has hair and nails that grow like the national debt. as in, exponentially. it is ridiculous. but we are lucky. it's genetics.
lots of people want to grow out their hair. i have some advice for you:
1. wash your hair with a strengthening shampoo and strengthening conditioner. i don't have to use those but if you're looking to grow out your hair it makes sense.
2. don't use heat to style your hair. i'm serious. i curl my hair maybe 3 or 4 times a month, maybe. that's it. using tons of heat, even with heat protectants, will eventually damage your hair. which leads to breakage. which leads to short.
3. put your hair in a braid when you sleep. it prevents breakage and you avoid the problem of bedhead.
4. let your head hang upside down for a minute or two every day. you know, just let your head hang down over the side of the bed for two minutes. if you increase blood circulation to your scalp you're fostering hair growth.
5. take your vitamins. they will make your hair strong. not to mention they're good for the rest of you.
6. most people, i learned from ELLE magazine, can't grow their hair down to their feet because it's a genetic thing. you're genetically predisposed to have hair a certain length. it's just that mine happens to be very very long. yours may not be that way, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
some downsides to having long hair:
1. you will clog up the vacuum. i'm not kidding. long hair gets tangled up in it somehow and then, as you're vacuuming, the acrid stench of burning hair hits your nose. and then, when you examine the vacuum, you find strands of hair rapped around everything and it is all a big mess and your stepsister has to come help you take your own hair out of the vacuum.
2. it requires more maintenance. for most people. i'm lucky that my hair is long, strong, and shiny and thick. i don't have to do much.
3. styling it, especially curling, takes longer.
4. getting volume at the root isn't easy.
5. it is oppressive in hot weather.
6. it gets stuck on things. most frequently doorknobs, chairs, hooks, wires, seatbelts, jewelry, purses, and sometimes other things too. and long hair is much more noticeable if it's on clothing. people always know when i've been somewhere because a long golden hair is on their couch.
7. you need to have some sort of layering done to your hair, because it can lack shape.
8. babies like to pull on it.
9. people will call you pocahontas, rapunzel, hippie, sleeping beauty, or rumpelstiltskin. i don't know why they call you rumpelstiltskin. i think they're trying to be clever or something.
other than that, i like having long hair. it is the most distinctive thing about my appearance.
i hope this was useful to you. it probably wasn't. but if i exist for something, it's rambling.
xx

nobody reads this thing but i don't care.

i'm going to update it anyway.
reading those posts i did in february made me nostalgic. but you can't live in the past. you have to be courageous and look forward.
or something like that.
lately i have been having some sort of mental breakdown that has seeped into my blood and made my physical health deteriorate. Since writing that last post i have lost nine pounds. that's about eight percent of my body weight lost. if you consider that i went from 113 to 104, that's significant loss for how small i am naturally. i felt like this summer made me lose balance in a very real sense, made me lose some part of myself that was, beforehand, making me whole.
i lost my security.
i became, in other words, insecure, and i let other people name my value.
there is no crisis of heart greater than this, because then you lose yourself. do you know what i mean?
i have discovered some things.
1. my worth comes from God. He follows me, a gem somewhere in my soul that sustains life.
2. i am worthy of His perfect, unsurpassable, stubborn, jealous love. and i am worthy of loving myself. i'm not talking about arrogance here. i'm talking about being comfortable in my skin. there is a person i know. she is lovely and shines light on me like an angel. when i look at her i see tremendous strength, because she is unafraid to be vulnerable. i see confidence. i used to have this, and then i lost it. i have to find it again. and i can never find it in other people, no matter how i wish to obey my romantic tendencies.
3. i know in my tremendous weakness that i am not alone, and much of the world feels this way.
4. i went to a Catholic church in my neighborhood. i'd never been there before, except once many years ago. i didn't know it, but someone pointed out to me that Catholic churches don't lock their doors. so i went there. it was a thursday, i think. it was in the afternoon, and no one was in there. it was a quiet, peaceful place, with a stone Jesus suspended on the cross before me. i knelt down, looked at this Jesus figure, and something inside me came alive. it was painful; it was like a tender seedling growing through rubble and ruin and soil contaminated by all my worry. i fell in love with Jesus. something happened. i felt in my heart, somewhere deep in the recesses of my heart, that i would follow Him all the days of my life. i didn't care if it cost my life, my love, my dreams, my money, anything. i fell in love with this kind, sorrowful, undiplomatic, unflinching man who is God in the flesh, meeting me where i am and wiping the filth from eyes.
5. i am realizing that i can be incredibly selfish, petty, judgmental, and jealous. sometimes judgment is ok, i think. i mean sometimes you need to evaluate your behavior or someone else's behavior to see what they are made of. that's ok. but the the judgment that says, you are unworthy of Christ's love, which any and all humans are entitled to, this is not what God has called us to. you've heard that old saying about don't pull the speck of sawdust out of your brother's eye before removing the plank from your own. my eyes have planks from here to Antarctica. they are big. they are clouding my vision.
6. pepto bismol does not work. and if you are having stomach problems, you should never eat lobster bisque, or any other bisque really. chowders are also not good.
7. people will fail you. you have to react to this with grace or else it will destroy you. what i mean is, don't have huge expectations that your boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend--they are not here to be your salvation. in a small way they are. if Jesus is a surgeon, then they are nursing assistants or licensed vocational nurses. they can give you some shots, an IV, some morphine, and some stickers after they give you shots. but they aren't here to fix you. if you believe that people are here to fix you, you will become possessive. you will become needy. you will become weary. it will be hard for you to forgive them when they let you down. people are just people--flawed, sometimes thrilling in their beauty, hopelessly confused mortal beings. if you accept this about your loved ones, life will be easier.
don't believe me?
which of the two people do you think were happier in their lifetimes--Mother Teresa or Marilyn Monroe?
Mother Teresa was ready to love and serve people in whatever way she could. she seemed like someone who was more or less comfortable in her own skin, if you ask me. Marilyn, on the other side, was heinously insecure. just look at her eyes the next time you see her picture.
if you are confident in yourself, other people's flaws will not bother you so much. if you depend on other people for your worth, you will become selfish and greedy. their affection will NEVER be enough because you're looking for something they cannot give you. it's unfair. and it really isn't fun.
8. do something, SOMETHING, every day, that nourishes you. i'm not talking about buying yourself pretty things you don't need. i'm talking about going outside and walking. praying. do something good with your hands--plant seeds, bake bread, write a letter, dance with yourself. this will help you love yourself. and then do something good for someone else. it doesn't have to be big. make a promise to yourself that will you do something good for yourself and something good for someone else every day. i swear it makes you feel better.
9. don't hold grudges. i'm serious. don't let people walk all over you. but don't retain bitterness. if you're mad at someone, write them a letter. say whatever you want. if you think they're a cocksucking dickface, write it in the letter. then throw this letter away. bitterness and peace can't exist together.
10. the world is throbbing with beauty, as henry miller says. find it. if you are having trouble finding it, book a flight to Washington state and go to the rainforests.
11. though i have been often racked with misery, it truly is a grand miracle to be alive. it truly is a miracle, to look at your flesh and realize that blood is coursing through you fast and wild like runaway horses, and that your liver is digesting the terribly unhealthy thing you ate for lunch and is not mad at you or kicking your ass because you ate something unhealthy. it is a miracle that your body fights invaders, every cell a vigilant soldier, every cell working together to form something endlessly complex, throbbing, and vital. it is a glorious thing to be alive.
12. no matter what you have done in the past, God loves you. if you don't believe in Him right now, that's ok. He believes in you.

so today was absolutely pointless. BUT!

so on thursday i came down with a nasty cold. i still cannot feel my ears. yep, that's right. my ears. i have had problems with my ears and sinuses ever since i was born. i woke up yesterday and i thought my right ear was gone because i couldn't hear out of it at all.
but my mother, bless her, insisted i still go to school--so she gave me some pills (not A pill, several of them--she works in private health care and has pharmaceutical friends who tell her what drugs not to mix) and sent me off.
you know what pisses me off? when people think that school HAS to come before everything. i could have really used today to recover, honestly. i'm not trying to miss a test or anything. it was an easy enough day. let me give you a summary:
zero period: history. my teacher is a lovely laid-back person who had us answer reading comprehension questions pretty much all period. i adore that class. fucking easiest thing ever.
first period: math. otherwise known as my impending demise. because it ain't algebra. it's precalculus. luckily, on the day i can't hear anything and i'm swimming in acetaminophen, we review synthetic division. i have to explain to my bemused acquaintances that the reason why i'm falling out of my chair is because my mother drugged me so i could come to school. they give me very sympathetic, worried glances.
i know they don't believe me....who would? but they are kind enough to go along with it.
second period: physics. this class is so easy that if sarah palin got her head out of her ass long enough to see what a mess she's making doing what she's doing now, she could easily pass it. we're doing a lab unit on electromagnetics and other electro-stuff. you know, things with light bulbs and compasses. and...CAPACITATORS.
now, amber, you say. it's a capacitor, not a capacitator. to be honest i'd be over the moon if i found out my humble little blog winds up having a following of electricians and astrophysicists. but yeah....there's this thing that either holds charge or extinguishes lightbulbs, i dunno which yet, called a capacitor. and our teacher, who is normally not nit-picky, got nit-picky about people calling it capacitators. he had us say it with him correctly a few times, like he was a kindergarten teacher--which he is, because we are all bumbling fools. so now, of course, being the boisterous and annoying teenagers we are, all of us gleefully call it a CAPACITAAATOR every single time he is within earshot, as many times as possible. today in class went something like this:
me: (i sit in the second row) so, jenna, can you hand me the CAPACITATOR?
jenna: (my patient, kind, good-humored lab partner) sure. do you think we need a bigger CAPACITATOR?
the guy who sits behind us: my CAPACITATOR isn't charging, jenna. am i doing it wrong?
and since my dad is an aerospace engineer, it also annoys him when i call it that.
ohh, it's so easy to make scientists upset.
third period: french. i am a junior but due to having to take a health class--a useless waste of california's already decaying monies--i am in french 2, rather than 3. we have a sub who is from switzerland and speaks very pure, good french. i swear i've never seen an ugly swiss person before, because she was also very lovely. we watched a movie with that guy who is in cyrano de bergerac? you know, girard something....i'lll tell you, his chin makes jay leno's chin look dainty.
fourth period: english. my favorite time of day. the only time when i am allowed to be thoroughly insufferable and use words such as insufferable in conversation. we discuss toni morrison's masterwork Beloved for a bit and she lets us go to work on our group essays. my group, chris and kyle, are two of my best friends, and so they kindly allow me to babble on about I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING while they discuss feminist overtones in the book. they are saints for putting up with me. bless them. i actually do a fair share of the work, but just not the logistics. i am terrible with planning and blueprinting. and thinking things through. i mean i'll think for a few minutes, sometimes for a few days if it's that important--but not on the how and on what page and what time do i get there--but about why i'm doing it, what it means to such-and-such, how similar or dissimilar it is to something marilyn monroe or jesus or ghandi would do, and whether or not my mother will find out.
like, for instance, creating this blog.
i'm too lazy to input a picture of apolo ohno or evan lysacek or shaun white--the three olympians whom i'm currently lusting after. go google it yourself. imma go drink some cloraseptic now.

just like any other day.

i have recently come to the realisation that i lead a very boring life.
well, at least i think so. i woke up late today because i stayed up late to watch the amazing shaun white win gold. if you don't know who i'm talking about, he is to snowboarding and those action-oriented, X-game type sports what michael jordan is to basketball. he has style, grace, and he is quite brave. he can launch twenty feet into the air, do two flips and three rotations at once, and land it perfectly--and he makes it look like he's eating granola. i mean he makes it look so natural and effortless. last night was breathtaking to watch. i snowboard, so i am a bit of a fangirl but i also have a bit of understanding about the sport.
so i woke up late, put on some mascara, and walked to school. school was pretty easy. except by my second period i felt a bit of scratchiness in my throat.
now, let me paint the picture for you a bit. viruses and other random ailments stick to me like flypaper. i suffered a bout of pneumonia in october that seriously made me so sick i could not walk for a week. i contracted scarlet fever in eighth grade, which is essentially strep throat with a giant appetite. if it gets into your blood and then into your heart, it can kill you. luckily, my mother works in private health care and so she can consult all sorts of specialists and pediatricians to take care of me. i have been blessed that way. but i'm still sick now.
i was walking to my locker with a friend, right when lunch began. some of our friends walked by and essentially told him he needed a girl. my first thought was, no, girls need him. because my friend is a sweet, patient fellow who would make any girl deliriously happy. if that girl was good enough to deserve him. so i told him this.
i think there is a weird and stupid expectation our society has of people--like, if you don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse, there is something somehow wrong with you. and i have never understood that. luckily, the heinous commercialist blitz of valentine's day is now over--so it's not at the forefront of my mind anymore. i happen to think that single people have the glorious advantage of time. not to mention i'm in high school, where most relationships are absurdly superficial. the charm and failure of young love is its inherent naivete, its innocence.
and then i came home at noon--i have a strange schedule which enables me to be done each day when lunch gets out--made some tea, and checked the huffington post, because i like them. this led me to reading rather an interesting interview with rob pattinson. whatever you think of twilight, he is a genuinely interesting, intellectual guy. i think we are very much the same in the sense that i fidget like a hummingbird, and if you watch pattinson in an interview, he always fidgets. tugging on his hair, biting his lip, rubbing his jaw. i'm like that except i'm not as pretty as he is...
so now i'm sitting here, coughing, trying not to think about the group essay outline i have to start aimconferencing on soon.

because i wanted to.

so today is valentine's day. and half the world is probably reeling from romantic complications and chocolate and there are probably way too many people eating expensive dinners, as i'm typing.

i have to say, for once i'm envious of those people. because today my grandfather passed away. he was a strange man but i loved him anyway. he had been sick for some time, wasting away, really. i haven't spoken to my father yet (it was his dad) but i can only imagine the heartache in his eyes right now. i'm sitting here waiting for him to come home, so i can make him some soup and watch the olympics together. heaven knows i'm worried about him.

anyways, the reason why i have this blog is because i was reading that Julie and Julia book, by Julie Powell, and she had a blog. i have always wanted a place to say whatever i'm feeling, whatever is on my mind, and broadcast it to the whole world because i am a narcissist. i thought perhaps youtube would offer me this but soon after creating an account on which to actually upload videos, i realized that i would have to look nice all the damn time with a youtube account. let me say this: i am no movie star. i often prefer to loaf around in leggings and thick sweaters, even though i live in california. i am in denial. i hate sunny weather, it doesn't agree with my skin and my dreams of living in the lush, verdant english countryside. i suppose i'm just not girlie enough for youtube.

anyways, so i thought why not make a blog? i like to write and i feel it is good practice for me, because although it's not dissimilar to a journal entry, i'm talking to someone else (i hope), not me. to be honest, if even one person reads this, i'll be thrilled. it felt like a somber sort of day, and it is good to do something productive on somber days, you know. it makes you feel a little less trapped. even if it's something like doing the dishes. i can't even tell you how soothing it is after something bad happens to wash plates and cups with scalding hot water and lemony soap, the steam blossoming around your head.

the other reason why i am having a blog is because, honestly, so many people use the internet to say vapid things. this is not going to be a blog about vapid things. i am an aficionado of literature, film, music, and art. am going to write about these things, and life, and the observations i have about these things.

some other stuff you should know.

1. i am sixteen years of age.

2. i have a bit of an interest in makeup, so i may make an aside about it here or there, if i find a product i really like or something. to me makeup is artistry with a face as a canvas. i find it fascinating.

3. i like poetry. i am one of about three people on the planet, it seems, who likes poetry. i am particularly fond of byron, keats, and this one poet by the name of max erhmann.

4. oooh! and guess what? i like philosophy too.

5. i am obsessed with music. this is why my blog has the name it does. my other obsessions: marilyn monroe, coldplay, bob dylan, U2, david bowie, oasis, old movies, jimi hendrix, princess diana, and lots of other things i can't think of.

6. i am an animal lover and i have three cats and one dog.

today is valentine's day. today my valentine is grief. i hope you fare better than me.

i'll be back soon with a more upbeat post.