I think it's amazing what you can figure out about a person based on his or her writing. It's not so much what the person writes about as much as it is the manner in which it is written. Fiction, memoirs, journals, pretty much any genre, and any level of writer, whether a published author or a high school student's essay. You can infer the writer's attitude and/or outlook toward the subject, his or her mood, writing style, and even catch a glimpse of some aspects of the person's personality. I once read somewhere that when you first meet someone and have a conversation with them, only 7% of their initial impression of you is based on what you actually say. Appearance and body language make up 55% and style of speaking makes up the other 38%. If that's true, then perhaps writing is the purest form of communication, void of all superficiality, allowing the reader to see below the surface and into the heart of the person underneath. Just a thought.

I've decided to attempt to resurrect my buried musical talents. I can't believe I let myself go for so long without playing anything. How sad. My musical abilities were part of what defined me as a person for so long. Need someone to play piano accompaniment for something? Ask Alison. Need help with a solo for All-County try-outs? Alison can help! Don't know the part you're supposed to be singing in the show? Stand next to Alison, she knows it! Not that I minded, it was a perfectly respectable thing to be known for, I guess I just got tired of it and didn't want to carry the image with me into college. I didn't know I'd miss it so much and be so upset when I couldn't play as well anymore. I feel like I abandoned a critical part of myself. More like I just sent it into the corner to hide with it's back turned for awhile, hoping to forget about it. This past year I learned that I can't forget about it, only suppress it for a period of time. It will always come back, begging to be resurfaced. I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but surrender to its requests.

Something I learned from reality TV: Attitude is everything. I suppose, in a sense, you change your attitude, you change the way others view you. If you change the way other people see you, you change their perception of your personality. If your attitude is part of your personality, then changing your attitude would change your personality. If personality defines a person, then you would be changing part of yourself, therefore not acting like yourself. People act like it's a bad thing to not act like yourself. All the time you always hear people giving the advice to "Just be yourself", as though that will provide a solution to every situation. What if the attitude you portray is not really part of your personality and you are not being yourself on a daily basis? Then if you change your attitude, you are not really changing your personality, and you were never "being yourself" to begin with. Now that your attitude has changed, you are more of yourself then you were to begin with. But what if you change your attitude even though the first attitude was really you, but it turns out that you like the new you even better than the old one. You have changed your attitude, therefore your personality and yourself for the better, making you a happier person. Then is it okay to not be yourself? Or is your new attitude now "yourself", so in reality you have been yourself the entire time and the former attitude was not yourself at all. Or is "yourself" just the way you are acting at the time? I suppose that would mean that you create your own attitude and personality, thus creating your own sense of "yourself". So that would mean that it is possible to change yourself and always be yourself at the same time. Because your attitude defines "yourself", even if you only change your attitude once, you have still changed "yourself", even if it is only temporary. So by changing your attitude, you are still acting as yourself, it may just be a different self from the one that was acting out yesterday, an hour ago, or 30 seconds ago. Eh, I'm sure there are a billion ways to contradict that. I'm not even entirely sure that it makes any sense whatsoever, and I'm not sure what I was trying to get at anyway. Except maybe that reality TV doesn't make me stupid and stop thinking after all.

I feel myself changing musical tastes yet again. I'm slipping back into sappy pop music sung by girls (think Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton). As much as I first hated to admit it, I really like the song "Pieces of Me" by Ashlee Simpson. I know when I first heard it, I thought "Oh no, not another mediocre pop song by the sibling of some overrated pop star hoping for 15 minutes of fame". What can I say, it grows on you after awhile, so I had to download it. I suppose we all have our weaknesses. I had to download the Dashboard Confessional song "Vindicated" that is on the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack too. I love it so much, I think I listened to it 5 times in a row, listed to a couple of other songs, then listened to it again another 5 times. I can't deny my history with Dashboard Confessional, my summer obsession of last late summer/early fall. It makes me want to go back and listen to The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, or go way back to The Swiss Army Romance and dig out my poster. Anyway, "Hands Down" is the best Dashboard song ever. It's definitely on my list of my top 10 favorite songs ever. I'm not sure what number and not sure what else is up there, but "Hands Down" is definitely on there somewhere. Although I really think this new song is one of his best. Oh well, I'm already working on a playlist of summer songs that I'll eventually burn onto CDs so I can always go back and be reminded of this summer. However, it's only early June and I already have nearly a whole CD. I guess it'll just be volumes 1, 2, and potentially 3 or more. Or it could just get really obsessive like all those NOW CDs, up to number 15 or whatever. Nah, I'll try to avoid that.

Oh well, it's 5:30 in the morning and I'm not sure why I sat here and wrote so much random stuff. I guess I just couldn't think of anything for the longest time, then I got flooded. Plus, it was the middle of the night, the time when I always write the most, feel the most inspired, and lose many of the inhibitions I carry with me during the day. I just say what I want and really don't care how strange it sounds. Tomorrow, I'll wonder why I just kept rambling and probably feel like an idiot, but right now I really don't care. I suppose I'll go to sleep now that the early birds are already singing, catching their worms, and the deep blue of the sky is emerging from it's opaque confinement. Honestly, sometimes the strangest things just pour out of my head.