Cold.

It's cold outside.

Not just, "oh, it's starting to get colder and feel a little less like fall and more like winter but it's still fairly nice (or at least decent) out" cold. Nuh-uh. Cold, cold. 18 degrees with a -1 degree wind chill cold.

In short, much too cold for the 17th of November.

So, instead of going to the gym today (because, let's face it, even walking 2 minutes in this weather is just not happening right now), I'm sitting in my room watching flurries swirl in the sky and drinking tea. I know. I'm a wimp. But it's so cold.

I think part of the reason I'm having such an issues with this is that it came too fast. I'm ok with this type of weather. I grew up in Iowa. It gets cold there every winter. Negative wind chill is no big.

Negative wind chill before Thanksgiving, however, is very big. This is February weather. The type of cold you expect when winter's been going on and you've acclimated (slightly) to the feel of frosty air on your cheeks and biting wind sneaking into your coat. But no. Chicago decided to drop this lovely chilly weather bomb on us with little warning, leaving us scrambling for extra layers and digging for hats and scarves.

The snow from a few nights ago didn't even stick around (pun intended). How rude is that?

If it's this cold, there might as well be snow.

I don't know how to say this.

I posted a few weeks ago about friends and friendships and how bad I am at communicating. Tonight, I'm listening to Christmas music and feeling very nostalgic and missing some people very badly that were once very important to me.

Sometimes, I feel like I failed some of my friends in high school by not being the person they needed. Maybe that sounds silly, but it's how I feel. I wasn't a very good friend some of the time. I was wrapped up in myself, and didn't act like I cared enough. Sometimes I still act that way. I'm working on it, but I think part of it has to do with my awkwardness and self doubt.

I've been realizing this last year or so that I've been upholding an image of what I thought I was supposed to be and presenting myself as that. That person was not the person I should be. That person is hypocritical and goody-two-shoes-y and too perfect to be true. That person was un-rightly judgmental and had a pretty outside for an ugly soul. I wasn't honest with myself, and I've not been honest with my friends.

There are things I wish I could say to some people. Forgiveness I wish I could ask for from people I didn't treat well. People I pitied and judged when I should have loved. People who had different opinions and views and values and thoughts than me than I should have tried harder to understand and accept. People I should have listened better to, people I should have been there for, instead of so wrapped up in myself and the perfect person I wanted to be, thought they needed me to be.

But I was so interested in pretending to be perfect, that I forgot most people don't like to look at someone who looks like they have it all together.  Someone who thinks they are right and that their way is best all the time instead of looking at circumstances and society and personality and personal family values and any other number of factors that contribute to who someone becomes.

(I know this is all sort of vague. But I don't really know how else to say it.)

Some of those people will probably never read this. If they did, they might not even know it was about them. But, if somehow they do, I just want them to know:

I love you. I will always love you. You taught me things about myself I truly needed to know, even if a lot of it was in hindsight. You were everything to me. You were less judgmental of me and everyone else then I ever have been of anyone, as much as I'd like to pretend to see the best in people.

For a few short years, you were my everything, you and a few others. I couldn't have done high school without you. You made me laugh, you helped me through struggles and heartache. I will always hold you close and dear to my heart. I will always want the best for you and believe the best of you, no matter what anyone else says. No matter what you do, I will love and forgive you. It is not and never has been my place to judge you, and I'm sorry if I made it feel like that's what I did.

I wish I could apologize face to face. I wish I knew what all to say, what all I did wrong. I wish I had the courage to be the person I wanted to, to start over and really be your friend. I wish I could know if this is all in my head.

Regardless, I am rooting for you. No matter what, I want you to be the best person you can be, I want you to be good and kind and everything you were made to be. I believe that you can be. I believe that you are worth it. It doesn't matter to me if you feel like you've failed. I don't care if you've done something wrong, if you've made bad choices, or if you simply feel like none of your hard work is paying off, to me you are still wonderful and important and beautiful. And you are worth it all.

For anyone who reads this, just know, that if you ever were my friend, even for a brief time, the message above can be for you too (changing a few key factors, perhaps, like the high school stuff if it doesn't apply to you).

If you are or were or ever will be my friend, I will always care about you, no matter how much time goes by, no matter what comes between us. You will always hold a piece of my heart.

Because no matter who I am, no matter how I've changed, and what I was, I'm learning that I love deeply. If I let you in, you're in for life, even if we haven't talked for years, even if we never speak again.

I love you.

Distractions from Procrastination

Tonight is filled with a lack of motivation running so deep I'm struggling to write this post.

It took me 5 minutes to finish that sentence. In those five minutes, I stared at the screen, stared at the keyboard, tried to post something on instagram, didn't complete posting it on instagram, and stared at the screen a little more before finishing the sentence.

The next paragraph explaining it all went through a similar process of procrastination.

So, I take a moment. I feel a little bit like crying, but instead, I plug in some Tenth Avenue North, and read a blog post by a new friend that I am quickly starting to look up to as a believer and a writer, and eat a piece of dark chocolate. I consider going to make some tea, but even going down to the kitchen area in my dorm is too much right now.

I should be writing my paper on Proverbs for my Bible class, or reading ahead for Brit. Lit. or Media, or even working on the Novel I've promised to write this month. (the novel, that, consequently, I've changed the subject of at least 5 times, and back again. I currently have a word count of 0, since I can't make up my mind. I need to have a word count of 8,335 right now to be on track.)

I can't even focus on "surfing the net", as they say. I just got distracted by the ends of my hair for almost half a song. (admittedly, they do need to be cut, but that's beside the point. I'm trying to blog, and I get distracted by hair. Come on Rissa, get it together.)

I don't know what's a better course of action on nights like this: Force myself through stuff with crappy results, or give myself a break that might ultimately add to my stress later, but put my mind at ease right now.

I'm procrastinating. I'm distracted even from that procrastination. How is this real? I'm procrastinating my procrastinating.

Whoops, just got distracted by my hair again. And I was doing so well.

I don't really know how to end this post. So, I guess I'm gonna leave it at that, seeing as I have no motivation to come up with something profound or witty.

(See what I did there?)

Taylor Swift vs Spotify

"We figured out how to listen to Taylor Swift on Spotify even though her songs got pulled! Click here to find out how!"

We talked about Taylor pulling her music off Spotify at lunch today, and after I got back from my lesson, I ran across this post ^ on tumblr a little bit ago, and decided to look into a little. I googled some stuff about the whole incident and come to some conclusions. Here's what I posted on my tumblr in response:

This is offensive, not only to Taylor who's choosing to not put up her music on Spotify, but to other artists as well. Spotify is as close to illegal as you can get without actually being illegal, and using it as a primary source of music means that the artists don't get the money they deserve.

Taylor might be fine, because she is well known, but lesser known artists are going to lose their voices. Those that are on Spotify don't earn much from the site to begin with, and if people don't buy their music, but listen to it for "free" instead, they earn next to nothing, which will put them out of business (ie they will be unable to make more music). Those that can't be on Spotify eventually might not be able to make their music anymore either, since less people will buy their music, instead choosing to listen to what's available "free" online.

Taylor herself said "Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free" [x]
Taylor is making a bold move, and I applaud her for stepping up. She's a big enough name for people to take notice. Yeah, free, available music is nice, but so is being able to share your talent with the world and get rewarded for it in the proper way. As an artist (writer), I appreciate the fact that she is standing up for others who don't have such a voice. The world needs to recognize that art is valuable and worth paying for, and artists should not be gypped for all their hard work.

I admit, I use Spotify, but not as a primary source of my music. Buying the music I love to support those artists has always been important to me, and if that means getting rid of, or at the very least changing Spotify altogether, then so be it.

If Spotify can find a way to properly compensate artists for "free listening" from their fans, then I have no problem with it becoming a bigger way to put out and listen to music. But as of right now, it's really a way for people to listen to music illegally, without it being "technically" illegal.

Think of it this way. The average song costs about a dollar. Artists on Spotify earn less than a cent per play (between $0.006 and $0.0084, to be exact, according to Spotify Artists, see link above). It takes over 100 times more to make the same amount of money. It's not fair to the artists.

I have more thoughts on this that aren't fully formed yet, but let me know what you think. I'm willing to hear other opinions, but I think that we need to understand that art is important and valuable, and should be treated as such.