facial piercing? check.
new wacky hair hackjob, partially executed by self? check.
aspirations for another, more...deathmetal facial piercing? check.
extensive visual documentation of all of this? check.
acquiring, very suddenly, something approximating a social life? check.
sudden attraction to using make-up in regular life? check.

help me, i am turning seventeen! the horror!

wait. that could also be a good thing. a great thing even. at seventeen, i was largely zen, largely driven by a burning purpose, and largely content to learn as much as i could, as fast as i could. along the way, drive has been patchy, zen evaporated for the most part, and purpose was uneven. i wanted to go off the track i'd lain for myself, but of course, good sense always prevailed. well, mostly. a mistake here, a heartbreak there. no great tragedy. except, somewhere along the way, i stopped dreaming for a while. now that made me very unhappy.

but i know what makes me happiest. it's a little like putting on a nuanced show, and very, very difficult to pull off every single time. but i've been practicing, and sometimes it works. this time around, they are arranged in expanding semicircles, and there is even a curve of lights trained on me. when i show the films, i can make it pitch black, like a real theatre. i smile often, i gesture, i pay attention to my posture, i try to ask articulate questions. if only i could remember all their names. all fiftyfour of them. it isn't a conversation yet, but it will be, and for this i will do anything it  takes, anything at all. i'll charm them all, the hoops, the drudgery, the mutinous discontents. look, look at what i'm trying to show you, lasso it, hold on to it, don't let go. pavic says a thought in words is like a puma captured with a rope on one end by the author, and on the other by the reader. or something like that. i think this is what they mean when they say she's passionate. something more than sheer exhibition. something to save, nurture, become.