get to know me | tragic backstory + questionable fun facts

hello everyone!

i’ve gotten a lot of new followers lately, so i thought it would be a good time to reintroduce myself. i feel like whenever i talk about myself on here, it’s through the form of, i don’t know, tragic poetry or sad song lyrics that make everyone concerned about my mental health. i never really say stuff like “tofu isn’t actually that bad” or “i don’t remember how to do long division,” which i’m sure is the type of get-to-know-me content that y’all actually want, right? so maybe this post will be helpful for not just my new readers, but the ones who have been putting up with my posts since 2014, too.

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to kick things off, my name is not actually apollo, which is probably not a shocker for anyone. it’s loren, which for the most part is a great name. but people always either pronounce it like the name lauren, or expect me to be a boy because traditionally it’s a male name. so i use a pen name on my blog, & i chose apollo because the things he symbolizes (archery, music, the sun, poetry, healing, etc.) really appeal to me. so that’s the story behind my name, but i honestly don’t care if any of you call me loren instead of apollo or vice versa.

ok, moving on. my name is loren, & i’m in high school. i live in the american south, & yes, i do have an accent. not a full-blown country singer kind of accent, but you can definitely tell i’m from the south because i say some words with a twang. there are fields on three sides of my house & sometimes there will be tractors on the highway when i’m driving around. yeehaw & all that.

i was homeschooled before i started going to high school. i know some people think that’s sad, to have a parent as your teacher & to not have any classmates besides your siblings, but it was actually pretty great. my mom was an amazing teacher & she took my older brother & i on educational trips a lot. we would go to the national park that we live by, museums, historical sites, etc. & since everyone else was in school, we would typically have the whole place to ourselves. so, to sum things up, my education was superb.

now i go to a public high school. i’m not having a great time, but i suppose that’s not surprising to anyone. i’m a huge introvert, so spending all day around loud people is exhausting for me. & i haven’t had to try very hard in my classes yet, not even the advanced ones, so it’s pretty boring. but what i am enjoying about high school are the science classes & extracurricular activities.

one of our snares made this about me lmao

all about that bass, am i right??

marching band be like
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i do marching band in the fall & soccer in the spring. i play bass in our band’s drumline, & while i (someone who is 5’2″) look ridiculous marching around with a great big drum strapped to my chest, i absolutely love it. my band is pretty small, with about forty members on a good day, but we’re actually sort of amazing & win a lot of awards at competitions. as for soccer, i play for the varsity team as a striker/midfielder. this season feels a little weird so far because we have a new coach & i’m not really friends with anyone on varsity, but it just started so i’ve still got some hope.

between homework & those extracurricular activities, i don’t have a whole lot of free time, but when i do, i’m usually doing one of three things: reading, writing, or scouting. i’m sure most of you know that i like to write, because that’s one of the main things i post on here. currently, i write a lot of poems & memoirs, which you can read by clicking right here. when it comes to reading, i typically go for poetry, fantasy, paranormal, & contemporary books.

here’s me looking snazzy in my uniform

so the third hobby on that list is scouting, & i have a lot to say about that one. i first got into scouting when i was in elementary school. my brother was in cub scouts & my parents were in charge of the den, so i went to all of the campouts & meetings & events. i loved it, but once my brother aged out of the den, i couldn’t participate in anything scouting related because girls weren’t allowed in the BSA at that time. so a few years later, my mom started an american heritage girls troop, which is just a girls scouting organization modeled after the BSA. my best friends were in the troop with me for awhile, but they quit after awhile. i miss seeing them at meetings, but i still love scouting: earning badges & going camping & volunteering & helping younger scouts with their requirements.

this is cloren, or clay loren

this is the BEST pie i’ve ever had

handicraft in our natural state

i ran out of pretty summer photos so here’s some chaotic camp pics
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in fact, i love it so much that i work at a BSA camp in the summer. i’ve been going to this camp as a scout since 2016, & now i get to work there, so it’s super special to me. i teach handicraft classes all summer with my friends, go on adventures, cause trouble, eat questionable amounts of ice cream, etc. & sure, some days it reaches 100°, my staff cabin is basically a shed, & i have to wear a uniform all summer, but it’s great! seriously, if you want to have a good summer, work at a sleepaway camp. you will be doing very little sleeping, but you’ll have the time of your life.

here’s a watercolor i did last year

i do have some other hobbies, like art & music & photography, but i don’t have much to say about them other than that i like them. so we’ll just move on to fun facts with loren/apollo/???

this is my kitty, she’s so precious

– i have two cats, my favorite of which is named navi
– i’ve been vegetarian for over a year
– i’m lactose intolerant but that sure doesn’t stop me from eating dairy 24/7!
– i love drinking tea (hot or sweet). the caffeine in it makes me really sleepy though
– my dream job is to be a paramedic, maybe for a medevac service
– i have some weird areas of hypopigmentation on my arms & legs that i think is caused by eczema?? i’m not 100% sure, just hoping it isn’t vitiligo
– according to my notes app, my favorite movies are sixth sense, dead poets society, catch me if you can, & the breakfast club.
– i have a slight obsession with lip balm but it’s totally not that big of a problem haha

so i guess that’s it? i know that was way too much useless information, but hey, if i ever become famous, you guys will ace those buzzfeed quizzes about me! but if by any chance you have more questions, leave them in the comments & i’ll stick them into a q&a post sometime.

xo apollo

o captain! my captain!

your dumb, drunk friends don’t care for me & always told you so. (we need to talk // waterparks)

we need to talk, i tell you, in the backseat of a dim bus, in a hallway with the lights off, in the middle of a vacant parking lot at one in the morning. & we do, but we never say anything that matters. it’s always i don’t know how to start this conversation & i don’t think it’ll last & i don’t want to give you false hope. we’re endlessly circling the point, which is that i love what you are but not who you are.

i feel sick every time we talk, like i might throw up my heart onto the ground between us. i ignore your messages as long as i can & i don’t look you in the eyes anymore, not after that. but i still end up listening to antique love songs with you on long drives home from a city i used to live in. you make me feel so young, the music promises, sickly sweet; put your head on my shoulder. so i do because you’re warm compared to the autumn air clinging to our skin, & your cologne makes me dizzy. i tell myself that it doesn’t mean anything, that we are asleep or drunk or thinking about other people. but the truth is, it’s hard to think about him when it’s your heartbeat singing in my ear.

did i tell you that when you held my hand, i closed my eyes & pretended you were someone else, or did i only say it in my head?

i can’t recall how many times i’ve gotten that i think we need to talk about last night text from you. but we speak with words, not feelings, so it doesn’t even make a difference. trying to be honest with you is like tiptoeing around the truth.

you intimidate me: leather jackets & a voice too deep for your age & injuries you refuse to explain. i’ve told you so, & maybe you thought i was flirting again. but i don’t feel any butterflies with you, just anxiety. if i could speak to you without the words getting stuck in my throat, this is what i would tell you:

– i remember seeing you cry in the hallway on the phone. my heart shattered that day in the summer & it has ached for you ever since.

– every time i look at you, your face is different; sometimes your eyes are soft & other times, you see right through me. your eyes shift colors in my memories. your features rearrange themselves like a puzzle that’s never quite completed. i think it has to mean something.

– your cousin made sure i knew that you go through girls quicker than the weather changes in a southern summer. it didn’t matter to me because i didn’t care about you at all.

you treat me differently depending on who we’re with. you only pay attention to me when we’re alone or your ex is watching us. i’m sick of it, sick of my clothes smelling like you, sick of saying yes every time you want me to come over. i want to kiss you & i want you to go ahead & move to the city & i want to forget how guilty i feel when i’m with you. i want for us to talk with feelings instead of words & for you to understand what i mean when i say that i wish i didn’t know your middle name.

i think that i am the worst person alive because i let you cook dinner for me & i wore your jacket when i wasn’t even cold & i asked to watch a horror movie so i would have an excuse to fall asleep on your chest. i know the way to all three of your houses & i pretended to really consider it when you asked me to stay the night. i don’t even love you at all. i am so used to having my own heart get broken that i never realized i could be doing it to you.

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a scatterbrained, unedited mess i wrote at one in the morning. i wish i could be honest with the people i care about. i wish you hadn’t walked me back to the stadium that night after the game because i am not myself when i am alone with you.

xo apollo

monarchs + life, i guess (3)

i haven’t posted in over a month and a bunch of stuff has happened since then. so today i’m going to be ranting about my life!

also, i have some pictures of monarch butterflies and mexican sunflowers to share. :)

– this is my first year going to public school, and it’s been really stressful so far. i’ve already missed a lot of school because some days i’ll wake up and just be way too overwhelmed to go to class. i think the hardest part is being around people for so long, especially since up until last week, i was staying at school until around 6:30 everyday because of marching band. but the season’s over now so i’ll have free time again.

but, uh, if anyone has tips for dealing with public school, they would be greatly appreciated.

– it’s only the third month of school and i know of seven or eight people who like/liked me. one asked me to homecoming in august, and two (maybe three) others were planning on doing the same, but didn’t once i said i was going with my best friend kelsie. two are 8th graders in the band who will probably lose feelings for me now that we won’t see each other very often, one is my best friend at school, and the other is a girl who’s friends with my brother. i’m flattered that people like me so much, but it’s kind of a lot to deal with. and i feel really bad about myself because i know i’ve hurt some of them and might screw up our friendships. romance is so messy and i’m not any good at it.

 

– marching band was the only thing i liked about school, and our final competition was last saturday. the season started off pretty well and then gradually went downhill. the most disappointing part was when we got second place percussion in our class, and then found out that the announcer had made a mistake and we’d actually gotten fourth. (to put it in perspective, there were five bands in our class and one of them didn’t show up.)

i only have classes with one of my band friends, and i’m going to miss everyone a lot. we still have a banquet, a few playoff games, and pep band before the season is completely over, but it’s not the same as practicing outside in the rain before the sun’s risen, spending all day with my friends, and then sleeping in a pile on the bus on the way back home. i can’t wait until next year when i get to join drumline. :)

– musical auditions happened recently. my school’s doing les misérables this year. i sang left behind from spring awakening, and i was so insanely nervous. my brother told me that my face was twitching. everyone said that if you audition for a supporting role and don’t get it, then you’re automatically placed in ensemble, which is what i wanted anyway. but i guess they did something different this time and only a dozen people got ensemble, and i’m not one of them. but my friend who only auditioned because of me got in. i’m totally not mad though. :)

idk, no one is very happy with the cast list, not even the people who got good roles. the only person who’s really ok with it is my brother, who got cast as the innkeeper. i’m honestly really disappointed because the musical was one of the reasons i decided to go to public school, and now i don’t get to be in it. i’ll probably help backstage but it’s really not the same.

– my friend n told me years ago that he was going to write a song for me, and he finally did. i listened to it during lunch yesterday and i just sat there and cried. it’s called i guess i lied and it’s my favorite song right now. it’s about me and our history together and it kind of means the world to me. he’s so talented and i’m really proud of him. :’)

this was a messy post but i really needed to rant. life is too much to handle sometimes.

i’m thinking of posting more poetry soon, if you guys are cool with that. i was very caffeinated last night and ended up staying awake until 3:30. during that time, i cleaned my whole room, did two projects for school, and wrote a couple of poems that i’m actually rather proud of. so just a heads up that you’ll be seeing more poetry soon even though the last post i made was about my poetry, too.

have a good day, everyone. i’m so glad that autumn is here.

xo apollo

it’s called ukulele screamo and it’s art

because you’re clearly not a real twenty one pilots fan until you post pictures of your ukulele on your blog.

and, yes, i did pick wildflowers and cover the ukulele with them just for these photos.

i can’t even play the ukulele. yet. i’m trying to figure it out, but i’m not very good at playing instruments. i get frustrated too easily. but i’m going to try to learn it over the summer, since i don’t have much else to do. i want to be able to play the only exception by paramore, stomach tied in knots by sleeping with sirens, and can’t help falling in love (a song that has grown to mean the world to me. thanks, n.).

i’ve been playing it for a little bit each day, and my fingers already hurt like heck. i don’t know how people who play string instruments exist. they have too much endurance for one person. i know that i’ll get calluses on my fingertips if i play enough, but it hurts right now and i am in so much pain. (i’m being a little bit dramatic, but that’s just how i keep my life from being incredibly boring. also, i’ve been in one play and two musicals, so that gives me the right to be dramatic, yeah? i’m being sarcastic, by the way.)

i’m just going to talk about my awful music teachers now.

mrs. t

so. i always wanted to play the flute. and one year, my mom decided that my brother and i should learn to play an instrument, as part of our school. i, of course, chose flute, and my brother picked drums. we found an old homeschool mom who knew how to play pretty much every instrument invented, and we took lessons from her once a week. her name was mrs. t. this was a  m i s t a k e, let me tell you.

when we arrived at her house for the first time, her two sons were playing basketball in the driveway. there was a dilapidated playhouse which was being claimed by the wild. we went into her house, and there was this really distinct and overwhelming smell. it was kind of like homemade spaghetti sauce with way too many fresh herbs in it. mrs. t was a plump lady with white hair that looked like a bunch of cotton balls glued to her head, and she had this slightly evil, strained smile. the only good thing was that she had lots of cats, and they would walk into the room while i took my music lesson and lay on the sheet music.

my brother’s lesson was first, so my mom and i spread out a blanket in the shade and did school until it was my turn. it was nearly impossible to focus, though, because of the racket my brother was making. he was pretty awful, honestly — hesitant taps, unsteady rhythm, etc. the worst part was that he thought he was really good, because he finished his book of sheet music way before i finished mine. but he didn’t need to learn notes and fingering and how to breathe properly.

anyway, my first lesson was incredibly awkward. i barely talked at all, because i hated how her house smelled and i didn’t want to breathe it in if i could help it. well, breathing is kind of important when playing a wind instrument, i’m not sure if you guys knew that.

mrs. t spent the first lesson teaching me how to put the flute together, how to clean and hold it, and how to get a crisp sound to come out of it. the flute smelled like my grandma’s nasty little schnauzer dog, by the way.

i realized a few things after that first lesson: flute is a lot harder than it looks, i would never be able to eat homemade spaghetti sauce again, and i really did not like mrs. t.

my mom made us stick with our instruments of choice for a year. by the time i got to quit flute lessons, the most impressive thing i could play was two lines of camptown races. i was very happy to quit, and although i still have my flute, i have barely touched it since then.

mrs. u

the two other music teachers i can remember were both from my co-op: mrs. u and mrs. c. mrs. u wasn’t a bad teacher, just a little too enthusiastic. she directed the musical that our co-op performed every other year, and i got the main role the first year i was old enough to audition. i played zoe (originally zach), the star of the basketball team who twisted her ankle before the big game. i had a fair amount of lines (snarky responses to other characters), but i mostly just got to sit there and look annoyed while everyone sang at me (i remember mckenna dancing around with a bible and basically telling me to change my attitude). the only song i got to sing in was the last one, after i had had a change of heart or whatever, and to this day, i will start singing it whenever someone says “everyday.”

mrs. c

mrs. c was a different story, though. she wrote the musical herself, and i don’t want to say that it was bad, but . . . i could have written a much better one. pup was one of the main characters for that musical. i was only part of the first act, so the practices were really quite boring for me. the only good things about that musical were that i got to laugh a lot with q and n during the practices, even though we got in trouble for it a few times. i also got to see n in a lot of dark eyeliner, which still stands as one of the most amusing things i’ve ever witnessed. i have lots more to say about this . . . slightly lacking musical, but that would be enough for a whole other post. i could write that, if you guys would be interested.

so, that pretty much sums up my experience with music classes. for someone who listens to music so much, it’s probably a bit surprising that i can’t play anything very well. hopefully i can become a little more than “absolute trash, seriously, why are you even trying” when it comes to ukulele.

i want to know about your awful teachers, because i’m sort of a bad person, i guess. so go ahead and rant about them in the comments, i won’t mind. 

xo apollo

i want you in the most unromantic way

(i figured out how to use the timer option on my camera, and even though it’s something small, i’m actually kind of proud of myself.)

i got to hang out with my lovely friend pup on thursday, after trying to plan something for a week. we picked her up at nine and then hung around my house, doing typical teenage girl stuff. like making sweet, sweet music with my ukulele, ocarina, and flute (it actually sounded pretty awful, but we were having fun, so whatever); emptying my wallet of money and throwing 30+ bills around my room; experimenting with milkshake recipes; testing our flexibility; updating her blog’s design, etc. (mostly) normal things.

the unicorn squad.

ah, yes. there we are.

we decided to go to the mall, to try and find a birthday present for our friend. we stopped at a couple stores, and it was actually really fun.

at books-a-million, i found two books about pup: they were called short and loser. and i spotted a unicorn mask and kind of freaked out. i think these are the sickest things ever, so of course we tried it on. we decided that at my wedding, my love and i will wear these for the pictures. i hope whoever i marry is cool with that.

(my nickname used to be unicorn [because i had a lovely zit on my forehead one day and pup is mean], and she will not let me live it down. but that’s fair, because i call her munchkin/fun-size/other nicknames related to being short, even though she’s actually a tiny bit taller than me.)

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me, holding a mug that looks like the colossal titan’s face: hey, kelsie, look at this. it’s as pretty as you are.

kelsie: *beautiful girly shriek*

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we found some superman socks with little capes attached to them. my friend q had some like that, and he wore them to co-op nearly every day. i think something must have happened to them, because he hasn’t worn them for a long time. i kind of wanted to get some new ones for him.

i found some cool socks, though, which i ended up getting.

starry night.

we stopped at a kiosk that sells phone cases, and the worker pointed out one of the camo ones and told us that they were popular among the ladies. he was pretty funny and helpful, but we didn’t find anything nice. there were some yankees ones and a creepy duck.

pup said she was scared to go into hot topic. apparently she walked by it around halloween, and saw a goth kid whom she mistook as a vampire. but i finally coaxed her into going in, and she decided that it was ok once she saw all the disney and harry potter things.

while we were in there, SING by my chemical romance started playing. i flipped out and followed pup around the store, performing the whole thing for her dramatically. i hope i embarrassed her.

for every time that they want to count you out
use your voice every single time you open up your mouth
sing it for the boys
sing it for the girls
every time that you lose it sing it for the worldthen we made our way over to claire’s, because i hadn’t found a nice choker at hot topic and was hoping they would have one. i picked a very simple one, and pup and i wandered around the store, looking at the flower crowns.

when we were getting close to leaving, pup found some pretty bracelets near the register. we ended up getting six of them, and they’re tight enough to not be annoying.

we thought we were supposed to meet my mom back at books-a-million. we waited there for awhile, and jish’s family walked by (he wasn’t with them, sadly). every time i see him, i stare at him creepily and sing, “jooooosh.” i usually ask him about joward, too. because i’m evil. >:)

my mom eventually texted us to see where we were, and then we got lost in the parking lot because we couldn’t find our car. there were a couple of guys using a jackhammer on the pavement, and i don’t think they were supposed to be doing that. oh well.

when we were driving pup to her grandma’s party store, she posted a  bunch of really awful pictures she had taken of me on instagram. she’s literally the worst person in the world. but i posted that picture of her in the unicorn mask as revenge.

she’s one of the weirdest, most amazing people i have ever met. and even if she doesn’t stay in my life forever, i’m so thankful for every moment i’ve had with her.

so this was kind of a weird post, but i don’t think i’ll regret it. i want to save as many photos and stories and inside jokes and adventures as i can, because one day, the people i love might leave, and i need more than just memories of them in my head.

xo apollo

i don’t like thursdays

« post idea from izzy’s rad blog »

songs in bold are explicit.

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roger rabbit // sleeping with sirens

me in my own head // beartooth

down // blink-182

missing you // green day

avalanche // bring me the horizon

fourth of july // fall out boy

hard times // paramore

coconut sharks in the water // twenty one pilots

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yes, i really did put that last one on there. and there’s nothing you can do about it, no matter how angry you are at me. that song is so underappreciated.

 600 followers?? wow, you guys actually like me, you’re so precious. i feel like a proud mother duck with a couple hundred cute duckling babies following me about. you guys are my adorable children and i must protect you.

whenever i try to type “frank iero,” his last name autocorrects to “jerk,” and i die a little bit every time, because HOW PERFECT.

my family is going on vacation to the beach sometime this summer. we’ll be there for a week, at a place with a gentle drop off and a cute beach house and vibrant sunsets, and i’ve got to say . . . i’m not looking forward to it at all. i would do absolutely anything to get out of going. the ocean is lovely enough, but i don’t do well with heat, and i don’t like bathing suits, and i have this newfound slight fear of large bodies of water. although i do love smelling like the sea and the kinky way my hair dries and when a huge wave slams me against the bottom. still, the thought of going makes me feel a bit sick. i just hope some miraculous way for me to get out of this pops up soon.

den mother said something that i thought was rather nice, so i decided to put it on here. “a colorblind person sees no color on the bee, but we all insist it’s yellow and black. they think we are simply making up an unfathomable concept of color. you’re blind to your own beauty, and even though we all insist it’s there, you don’t believe us because you can’t see it yourself. just as that colorblind person must trust the concept of color, you must trust your own beauty.”

 

i probably could have used one of his “inspiring quotes” as the caption for this, but the only one i can remember is “sometimes you gotta look yourself in the mirror and say ‘you are the prettiest princess in all the land.’ i do it once a week.” and i’m not sure how well that will go over with you guys.

i got a new plant yesterday. :D he’s the weird orange thing in first picture. go stare at him, he is beautiful. i named him barakat, after jack barakat, the guitarist from the band all time low. he’s the dude in the photo above. hopefully i won’t accidentally kill my lovely new plant friend, but we’ll see. i nearly killed my baby plants from this post, and they’re cacti, so they’re supposed to be quite easy to take care of. things do not look good for barakat.

i’ll be going to public school part time next year. that’s a thing. i’ll be taking one class a day, i believe, but one day it will be spanish, and the next day it will be math. and to see which math class i’ll be taking, i’m going to have to go to the school sometime next week and take a test. that might not seem like a big deal to most of you, but since i’ve been homeschooled my whole life, i don’t have that much experience with important tests. i’m not that good at math, and tests really stress me out (i’ve been known to completely break down while taking them), so my chances of passing and getting into the class my mom wants are quite low. i might just fail on purpose, who knows. i’ll never be good enough for my parents anyway, so why even try? my brother is brilliant, he gets all a’s and got awards in multiple classes. i’ll never be that good, so my parents will never have a reason to be proud of me.

i’ll always be a disappointment. i can’t change.

xo apollo