how is this factoring?

(c) Kimber Elise Swanson
Monday, April 26, two thousand ten.

"How is that anything close to factoring?"
--Brittany Warth

Sitting in retrospect...

We don't live around this mess we live under it. -guy forsynth

What we idolize is what we are.
 
Tvs showing desperate housewives making love with salesmen and rich drunk teenagers waving guns at eachother.  Posers who sing about gangs and drugs and crimes and prostitutes who charge more than they're worth.  Anorexic models who eat breath mints and diet pills to look good in ugly clothes. Women who say makeup and money make you beautiful and millionaire athletes crave hotel hook ups with anyone but their wife.
  
Preteens who worship skanks and try to dress like a rich spoiled slut in hopes that someday, they too will hook up in a dark closet with a stoned stranger.  
Boys who play war, staring at little screens in their bedrooms, shooting down faceless Nazis. The ones who get their first taste of porn from their dropout drugged up brother and look at girls like things to bang.
Teenagers who borrow daddy's gun and take it to school to shoot innocents just for attention, justifying it because the dead are just related to monkeys. Couples spending themselves into oblivion, buying gas guzzling luxury SUVs and faster shinier boats.  40 year olds dyeing their hair and injecting plastic into their face so they can relive their prime.

This is America right now.

New Years Resolutions

Resolutions are overrated. Honestly. I think the last time I actually made one was in fourth grade: and by day three I had broken it. Every year my mother about how they get want to get into shape, and my dad talks of eating healthier. As for me: Bah-humbug. Only 10% of Americans actually keep their New Year's resolution (or something like that). Why create a dream to achieve a better lifestyle just to have it crushed the second week of February?

So I'm just a Scrooge, I suppose. Next thing you know I'll be visited by ghosts of New Years Past or something equally as cliche (Don't mind me, I'm just a money grubbing old man with creaky knees and a heart of stone).

But this new year was a little different: the start of a new decade (2000-2009 was officially labeled "The Decade From Hell" by Time Magazine). Everyone is looking to this year for restitution: rebuilding our economy from the recession, the end of the Iraqi war (I'll talk more about that later). There's hope in the future of 2010.

Maybe not for me.
The first two nights of 2010 were filled with nightmares. Literally. I would wake up sweating in the middle of the night: then slowly, when i was sure it was just in my head, drift back to sleep. The dreams were filled terrible memories from the year past, but twisted so harshly it was almost grotesque.

The days were filled with regret and remorse for the things I'd done. As the days progressed, I became more and more depressed. I couldn't believe my unluckiness.
I became miserable, thinking what I could do to fix the past. Misery turned into bitterness, and bitterness to insecurity. I couldn't believe what I had become so quickly: a remorseful unhappy girl with a emotional burden on her back.

But as quickly as the pendulum swung, even faster did it swing back in my favor. I pulled out my Bible one night and opened it randomly, hoping to find something to bring my spirits up. And so I did.. (TTL!) "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." LAM 3:21
That might not mean crap to you, but it sure as heck meant something to me.

And then, like magic, it clicked: I needed to forget and not slow down (Thank you Relient K and Kyle.. I love you guys!)

"I could spend my life just trying to sift through what I could have done better, but what good do what-ifs do?"

So I guess that's my new years resolution: To Forget and Not Slow Down. Because maybe it's time to just move on with my life, and not worry about the ones who I'll probably never talk to again. I don't care whose fault it was or if there's any way to patch up what we shredded to pieces, because this year is going to be all about "washing my hands of it."

Maybe I'm not so bah-humbug after all ;)





Forget And Not Slow Down Lyrics

How many times
Can I push it aside
Is it time I befriended all the ghosts of all the things that haunt me most
So they leave me alone
Move on with my life
Be certain the steps of left and right don't fight the direction of upright

I'd rather forget and not slow down
Than gather regret for the things I can't change now
If I become what I can't accept
Resurrect the saint from within the wretch
Pour over me and wash my hands of it

It's time to decide
Which is out of my mind
Cause it'll be me unless I put some thoughts to rest and leave some faults behind
I'll watch the glint in my eye
Shine off the spring in my step
And could be blinding depending on the amount of you that I reflect

Cause I could spend my life just trying to sift through
What I could've done better but what good do what ifs do
Oh oh
Oh oh
There's something I should tell you now

Drowning In A Sea Of Trends...

Owl city is dead.
Another victim of mainstream.
Assassinated by girls with myspace accounts and those who say omg often.
Who watch the hills and listen to Kanye West.
Who pursue boys who wear polo shirts and fohawks and play football.
And drive fancy cars their parents pay for.
Those who ponder little and talk much.
They hear sounds and smile plastic smiles.
They can't comprehend the underground.
Owl city thrived on kids with beanies and top ramen in their cupboards. The kids who work and stay sober on the weekends. Who know what true religion is. Girls who have never fake tanned in their lives and boys who pursue them in rusty old cars that are lovingly coaxed to life every morning. Those who pay their own rent and water their own plants.
When what you see is what you get, but they imagine more. Owl city was born and raised on a landscape like this.
When Adam was alone. Doesn't he realize he was the best when he was solo?
The world is sad.
Owl city is dead.
Thank you conformity and vh1.

(my.name.is.kimber)

Kimber.Elise.
consists of:

Dreams.
Music.
Love.
Photographs.
Written Words.
Thoughts.
Alphabet Magnets.
Psychology.
Cups of Coffee.
Pianos.
Guitars.
A New Man.
Poems.
Willow Trees.
Birds in Cages.
Friends.
Memories.
Hand Drawn Monsters.
Apricot Honey Tea.
Insomnia.
Plastic Boxes.
Strong Arms.
Stronger Will.
Competition.
Newspaper Clippings.
Vegetarians.