This Sky

Fence posts stand at attention as I walk by,
silently marking out the perimeter of lawns
containing slices of private routine for the families who live
in the little made-up houses, going about their lives
behind drapes yanked over windows.


Cars whiz by that, though they differ in color and shape,
all make the same noise as they pass along the black pavement
neatly squeezed between the busy sidewalk where people
hustle by, staring straight ahead, always such in a hurry to get
where they are going.

The bus pulls away from the curb, carrying off all the busy people.
It would have carried me away too, but my bags were heavy 
and the way was too long 
for me to make it on a Monday morning.

The grass beneath my feet now is course and dry,
a brownish green community clinging resolutely to the earth.
As weariness sinks into my bones and worry creases my brow
I tilt my head up and sigh, closing my eyes to blot out the bustle around me.


When I open them again I am almost stricken down
by the glorious vision rushing in through my pupils and etching itself onto my brain.
Above me the world opens up forever into a vast expanse of blue,
achingly beautiful, almost too much space and color for my mind to comprehend.

White, solid, ageless cloud formations tower overhead, slowly 
easing their way over the world as far as the eye can see.  
I stare wide-eyed up into the largest thing I have ever known,
wanting to absorb its magnificence into every part of my very being.

The all-engulfing dome of blue stretches on over the horizon
and I am amazed at this whole other world miles above my own:
a world both beautiful and ever-changing, content simply to exist.


My head spins as I look up, my body feeling smaller than the blades of grass underfoot.
I had been looking down so long, judging the cracks in the sidewalk to be so big,
that I had forgotten how huge and open the universe above my head could be.

The next bus pulls up to my stop and I let the crowd move me up into the aisle.
I choose a window seat and keep glancing up through the smudged glass.
If there is one thing I am sure of now, it is that I will never forget,
and never again  lose sight of, this sky.

Love, Despair, and Sea Dragons

There is a man here, in this jungle village by the sea.  I love him though I barely know him, but so does she.  I don't know her name, only that she has some kind of dangerous, wild aura about her that binds her to this place.  She wears a tribal short dress and a mask that covers her whole face, looking just like Princess Mononoke.  Some whisper that she is a witch.  Some say she has always lived in this place, as mysterious as the island and the sea that surrounds it.  

I confess my love to him one day and she hears of it.  Devastated, fury and anguish swirl around her, thickening the air on the beach as she stares at us through her mask.  She says nothing, but the atmosphere of the beach becomes dark and heavy.  The man goes over to her and lowers to his knees, bringing us both with him.  He has an arm around each of us, kneeling on either side of him.  He whispers into my ear.  I can feel his warm side against my back.  His steady heartbeat, more precious than my own, pounds rhythmically against me.  His breath is warm and ticklish against my neck and ear as he says: I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman.  Then he turns to her and whispers something comforting but also letting her know of his choice.  

We part ways as night falls and go back to our homes.  I look out my window and see her in a bow of abject despair on the beach.  She is kneeling down in the sand, her fists curled tight and her masked face pressed into the earth.  She hates me.  I can feel her hate and loss reaching out to me like a physical thing.  

The next morning I go out to the beach to meet the man who loves me.  My heart is light and full.  I have cast the unfortunate girl out of my mind.  I am smiling as I approach a group of people gathered at the sea's edge.  At first I don't notice their somber, grieving attitudes because I am too busy searching their faces for the one I want.  They turn to me, ages of hard sorrow etched into their faces.  When they turn I see his bloody, broken body laying face up on the beach, staring blankly at the gray, overcast sky.  He has a gaping hole in his side as if something had taken a bite out of him.  The water from the crashing waves swirl up and tease his hair.  They tell me the mighty sea dragon that inhabits the waters around the island carried him away and ate him in the night.  It is cold and windy on the beach today.  I feel her stare on the back of my head.  I turn to see her hateful masked face, silent and inexpressive, yet I can feel her smugness radiating towards me.  My heart turns to stone and I am consumed with thoughts of revenge.  I would go out on the sea and kill the dragon, or die trying.  

I go out in search for it using radar technology to see its huge bulk in the water.  I find it.  It is a long, imposing, red undulation of death on the map.  Then it grows small and disappears.  But it is too late.  I have seen where it went and know that if I am fast, I should be able to catch it despite its magical disguise.  I burst into the bamboo house where I last saw it disappear into.  There are two chunks of meat on the stove.  A husband and wife team that used to be the dragon.  Something in me feels their fearful, hating spirits staring at me in horror of finding them in their weakened state. I go and put them on the fire, cooking them thoroughly as they scream and cry out in death.  They hiss at me that if they should die, so should their daughter.  They tell me that she is in the house, just in the corner.  When the hunks of meat fall silent and I know they are finished, I walk over to a small piece of meat, pink and as of yet untouched by anyone.  I feel her innocence.  I decide that there has been enough death and leave her.


*kind of anticlimactic with the meat thing, but an interesting dream nonetheless*

What?

I came to a fork in the road.  Unsure of what to do, I picked up the fork and put it in my pocket. Who knows when you'll need a fork in your life?  I certainly could have used a good spoon half an hour ago, that was for sure. I supposed I'd just have to come up with a good story to tell Matt when he finally noticed that all his lemons were gone. 


Jason took the picture of Sharon early that morning.  She was wearing a green sun dress, brown hair drifting gently across her face from the wind's antics.  Alex, her fionce,  busted Jason's teeth in when he caught him running away with it.  He had photographed Sharon himself that warm summer day two years ago.  Too bad the photo has blood stains on it now.  Cest la vie.

July 8th Today I Learned

Bridal Gown Colors:
1. China and Many other Asian countries: red is a symbol of good luck (red with gold embroidery is common)
2. Southern China: A phoenix and a dragon are often embroidered on the dress to represent the balance of power in a marriage between husband and wife
3. Indonesia: the bride and groom wear complementary outfits and many golden accesories
4. Korea: traditional dresses are enormous and hard to move around in, making the brides maids more essential to the bride
5. Morocco: yellow gowns are thought to ward off evil. green is another popular color meant to symbolize new life
6. Japan: purple is thought to be the color of love, though brides wear many different colors
7. Ireland: brides traditionally wear blue. green is considered very unlucky

Try It!

Here are random artsy things I want to try before the year is up, even if they are crappy attempts!


1. Write and draw my own comic
2. Draw concept art for something I write
3. Create a photographic narrative for something I write
4. Make a hoop dancing video
5. Recreate a famous work of art and photograph it (can be silly or modern versions-pay attention to posture and lighting)
6. Write a flute song and record it
7. Make a stop-motion video
8. Start a Today I Learned column where I research anything I want and learn something new each day

Glimpses

Her face, beautiful and exotic, draws nearer to mine.  Her eyes are deep and dangerous.  Her luscious, full mouth twists up at one corner to form a sexy, sadistic smile.  She slowly parts my lips with hers and kisses me with the smooth confidence of one who is desired by all.  As she pulls away, her smoldering eyes hold my gaze, her expression saying I am a tasty morsel to be devoured.  I pretend I am unconcerned by the lethal poison burning my lips and the tip of my tongue, though we both know full well her kiss is used to kill.  But that is not her way with me.  We have been enemies for far too long and know each other too well for that.  She intends to kill me using her darlings.  With the grace of a deadly panther, she turns her back on me and moves toward the device.  I calmly wipe the poison away, careful not to swallow.  She places her hand on the console and keys the correct combination.  I walk over to stand beside her.  I can hear rabid snarling and snapping sounds getting closer.  The hell hounds are on their way to maul and rip and tear.  It's what they do best.  After all, she likes to keep them hungry.  We stand side by side and wait in silence.  They're almost here.


Sunlight streams down through the leaves like ribbons of gold.  Lush shrubbery grows amongst the trees around the grove, yielding fat, ripe berries.  Bright flowers rise up above the grass, filling the forest with a sweet smell.  Butterflies flit from flower to flower, alighting on vivid yellows, pinks and blues to drink their life sustaining nectar.  Shimmery, powdery wings dot the clearing in beautiful colored patterns, large and small.  The insects begin to gather together in small groups, bouncing up and down in the air with each beat of their delicate wings.  The patches of butterflies glide to the center of the clearing where the sunbeams are thickest and brightest.  They move together like leaves blown by the same wind, swirling peacefully around each other until they have formed a fantastical column of ever-changing color.  The column condenses and the figure of a pale woman robed in light, airy fabric straightens up and sweeps her gaze across the grove.  Her eyes settle on a human standing silently, breathlessly at the edge of the trees.  She smiles gently, mouths something, and bursts out in all directions in a mass of color and fluttering wings. 


Sandy bent over to get a better look at the large monarch butterfly.  It's wings slowly and elegantly folded and unfolded, showing off a dazzling stained glass pattern of orange, black, and white.  As she got closer, Sandy noticed what the monarch was standing on.  It had delicately attached itself to what was left of the rotting carcass of a squirrel, sharing the space gleefully with the flies that were attracted to the sharp stench of decay.  Sandy swatted at the insect, scaring it away from its perch.  "Nasty little bastards," she muttered, straightening up.  She looked back over her shoulder as she continued along the paved path winding around the lake.  The monarch had reattached itself to it's treasure, proudly reigning over the stinking, rotted remains. 

Dreaming: Exploring

I know I am in the Alaskan rain forest, though it looks more like a rain forest in the tropics.  I am sitting on a large boulder at the edge of a large pool.  A young male tiger lays on a rock next to and below mine.  I lean down to pet him, and although he is wild, I know he will not attack.  Beautiful, lush, greenery spreads out behind my perch for miles and miles.  The pool in front of me is crystal clear and light blue.  A cliff rises up from the pool to my left, it's top leaning out over the water with a tall natural column of rock jutting up from the pool to meet the cliff's top, making a gorgeous tunnel filled with water from the pool.  I am on the opposite bank of the pool than I was before, walking down a gentle, grass covered slope that leads out of the rain forest.  I step down onto a wide cobbled side street in a place that resembles an Italian town.  The stone under my feet is a light tan color and the buildings are mostly made of stone or bricks of varying shades of tan, light brown, and rusty browns.  The roofs are made of baked clay shingles.  I am a stranger in this land and I know no one, but I am not afraid.  I look forward to the adventure of exploring this place and living a whole new life.  I walk into a building and step down into a bustling mexican restaurant.  I pass by people who look hispanic and indian by turns.  Dark skin, dark hair.  A handsome young man smiles at me as I pass by.  I walk out into a narrow alleyway onto another cobbled street.  The sun has almost set, making the tan street glow with the sun's evening warmth.  I explore the town, walking past the people who live there and taking in the amazing architecture around me and reveling in the atmosphere of the place.  When night falls, I am still walking around outside on the lit streets.  I pass under a cobbled tunnel and notice I am being followed by a man.  I feel uneasy at first, and I stop and half-turn to reveal that I know he is there, to confront him.  Then I realize I know this person.  He falls into step with me and we begin talking.  The conversation flows easy and insignificant.  Suddenly the man turns to me, takes my chin in his hand, and kisses me firmly and quickly on the mouth.  He looks into my eyes with a slightly pained expression and says "So many words and nothing to say."  He lets his hand drop from my face and rushes off into the night.  I could follow him, but I have a boyfriend back where I am from.  I smile and continue walking along the festively lit streets, happy that it happened even if nothing would come of it. 

Dreaming: The Insane Asylum

There has been a mistake.  My boyfriend of three years was sent to a prison/insane asylum but he's really not crazy.  I fake it and pretend I'm crazy so that they will institutionalize me too.  I know without an ounce of doubt that I'd rather be trapped in the asylum with him than be free in the world knowing he's in there.  The prison is in the countryside in a field.  There is a forest around the perimeter.  The grass is golden, so it's probably fall.  The grass is trampled in many places from the prisoners and their guard so that the dirt is predominant in some places.  He is already in his cell when I arrive.  His cell is a large boxlike enclosure with padded air flooring like it was an air matress.  Half of it is just filled up, so the top half is where he stays.  Since only half of the enclosure is empty space, he has to sit and crawl, not stand and walk.  The prison is open and is like an amusement park for some gawkers.  They go to look at him because some of his cell is plexiglass and he can't go anywhere inside it and truly escape their watching.  I am waiting in line with the rest of the convicted and insane.  I am told by a fat, slightly ugly, women warden that males and females are not housed together.  I am devastated.  I absolutely would not subject myself to this hell unless I was with him.  That was the whole point.  I reason with her and the portly man beside her, who is her superior, until he says he will put me in with my boyfriend for now but can't guarantee anything.  I am unsettled but fairly happy for the moment.  I just need enough time to prove to them all that he isn't crazy and neither am I.  I go through the icecream and hot dog lunch line, which is out in the open field too.  I am finally put in the cell with my boyfriend.  We speak to each other and try to deal with crawling on the airmattress floor and dealing with the starers.  We feel like monkeys at the zoo.  Don't these people have any decency?  Why do they stare so and press their faces up against the glass and point?  We are sane and we are innocent!  Since I am new to the prison camp, I get to meet with my appraiser.  She judges whether I am crazy or not.  She stands me next to two other people, one of which is a young black boy.  She asks us each a question, only one, and they are each extremely different and unrelated trivia questions.  If we get the question right, we are free, if not, we go back to the cells.  The boy gets an extremely easy question that anyone over the age of 4 could get.  I am confident I can answer mine.  When she gets to me, it's a very obscure history/geography question that I don't expect anyone to know.  I get it wrong and there are no other changes, no more questions.  It's so unfair!  I am sane!  Can't she see that I'm not crazy!  I tell her the situation, my story.  She listens politely but with the air of someone who will not change her mind.  She apologizes and says one question is all I get, but she will be back to ask another one in three months time.  Three months!  I can't wait that long!  My first year of college is starting and I don't want to miss my classes and miss being in the MV's because I was wrongly convicted of lunacy!  My boyfriend is also going to the same college and he can't miss it!  I plead with her but the woman won't budge.  When she leaves, I run back inside and find my confiscated cell phone and try to dial mom's cell phone number for help.  I was told that an adult guardian can come and sign me off and get me out.  If only mom knew where I was and that I needed out, she could come get me and my boyfriend out by bringing his mother with her.  I can't dial the right number.  The woman will be back any moment.  I'm almost in tears because of fear and frustration.  I keep hitting the wrong buttons.  I dread that this will be like so many other dreams where the dreamer can't run away, etc and fails an easy thing.  But no, this is different.  I get a hold of mom and tell her to come get us.  She agrees and I relax, knowing we will both be free soon. Throughout my time there it bothers me that the insane are treated so poorly, but I'm preoccupied with getting us out and separating myself from the truly crazy in the warden's minds that I push the issue to the back of my mind, but I wish they could be helped to get away too.

Dreaming-A Nonsensical Telling

A virtual world, a game.  A tall, somewhat plain but handsome, sturdy man walks by my side, showing me the amazing things he has there.  He didn't make it from scratch, his uncle's money bought it.  I find that it's cheating and takes away, but I don't say that.  It puts my homemade world to shame, but I am not bothered by that.  I wonder at the real feel of plastic tarp beneath my feet when I twist my bare foot around on a circle of it.  I hold my hands out under a water fountain and marvel that I feel it like it were real-wet and cold, streaming over my skin.  He likes me, this man.  He is older than me by a few years, a man to my young woman.  I don't quite return the feeling.  I am wild and free and unsure, he is sturdy and steady and knows exactly what he wants.  He talks to me, trying to bring me in with his kindness and reliability.  There is a war.  He runs through the jungle with a gun alongside the rest of his crew.  He walks into a large, wooden, two story house in the forest of some foreign country.  It is a trap.  They will all die.  There are suicide bombers inside, waiting for them to move far enough into the rooms that they cannot escape when the blast goes off.  Run, run, I feel in my heart as I watch from a 3rd person camera perspective.  I warn him with the fiber of my being.  He catches it.  He looks under the bed and sees a handsome, tanned faced young man of twenty something looking out cruelly from his hiding place.  Before the dark haired young man can speak, I warn with my heart again.  If he lingers, they will die.  My man runs and leaps out the second story window and his crew, one lean black man and one short, pretty woman, follow him instantly.  The building explodes but they are already on their way to the ground.  They are hurt by the fall, but nothing serious.  This has happened before.  They died.  I didn't want him to die.  I wasn't sure if I wanted a future with him.  I knew I didn't want to lose such a good man, though, regardless.  The world needed a man like him.  He deserved to live.  This was a second chance and fate changed and they lived, but his arm below the elbow was blown off.  He comes back to me, as good and cheerful and steadfast as ever despite his missing arm.  He sits down in front of me, resting between my legs.  Both of us are sitting upright and he faces away from me.  Two of my exes are sitting near me.  One is hostile, the other indifferent.  I don't care about the hostility.  It doesn't make me stop touching the man.  I rake my nails gently back and forth on his back outside of his shirt.  As I stare at his back and watch it move slowly with his breathing, I feel his goodness and I see a flash of the future, of his true, certain, unwavering desire.  He knows what he wants absolutely.  Before me is a man who knows where he wants to take his future.  Next to me, in my exes, are boys who are still just boys.  I see me as his wife, wearing an apron, long dirty blond hair that looks similar to his buzz cut dirty blond, welcoming him home through a white door.  We have a young son.  He is much loved by his parents.   The man in front of me is happy.  He doesn't know of my uncertainty.  Later, he gives me a silver ring with a yellow-green gem as a gift.  I take it and am pleased by it's beauty.  I misunderstood it's meaning.  It is an engagement ring, my grandmother aunt tells me by saying "It's all right, he's always wanted you."  It is true.  Ever since I was years younger, when he was still a man at heart and I was even more wild and uncertain, he has wanted to marry me.  I don't know.  I don't know.  The idea excites me and niggles at me, forcing me to face my uncertainty.  I wake up.  I don't want it to end.  I want to know what happens between us and to the man himself.  I go back to sleep.  I go to him and decide I would be a fool to let him go.  His future vision comes true.  I accept him and we marry and are very happy.  I come to love him as he has always loved me.  We have a son.  I love them all.  I wake up.  I am happy and hold on to the feeling and events of the dream.  




I often have weird, wonderful dreams that I don't want to leave but are very hard to remember or are nearly impossible to tell in a coherent way to someone else.  So much in dreams you just KNOW without any logical reason why you know it.  So much is felt without any kind of back story.  I love my dreams.  I wish I could video record them because, before writing this, I believed I could never record it in words or by telling it to someone else.  But, whether this dream I have written makes sense or not to others, it makes perfect sense to me and it really did a great job at capturing the feelings and the stream of consciousness of the dream.  I can feel and see more than a reader who didn't have the dream can from reading this, but the words call back those things that can't quite be written down to me.  I like this and I think I will try it again with no regard to coherence.  It's very fun and true to the dreaming!  There might even be ideas for stories or something hidden in them.

God Is In Us

I recently went to Wild and Wonderful West Virginia to go on a canopy zipline tour with Mom, her friend Monica, and Monica's husband Timmy.  I went on a zipline for the first time and rappelled at the end and went with Timmy on an exhilarating and slightly frightening motorcycle ride.  After the tour, we went to a large river where people often go white water rafting.  We made our way through the trees and between large rocks, jumping from one to the other like forest spirits.  Once at the water's edge, I turned away from the river and looked back into the trees.  There were large boulders amongst the trees and some trees grew on top of the rocks.  Water ran over and around the rocks and trees, finding new paths down the hill mountainside and to the river.  I went to sit on a large stone at the bottom of all the little waterfalls and took in the splendor.  I heard God's voice there, through my soul.  He said:


I am in the rock.  I am in the trees.  I am in the water.  I am in you.  I am in them.  I am the tree that takes root and grows in the most impossible places.  I am the water that finds a different path, or, when there is none, makes its own, always moving certainly along its course.  I am the Light of the World and I also reside in the shadows cast upon the way. 


Shadows from limbs and leaves overhead crisscrossed my arms with their shadowed pattern and I felt God in everything in me and around me.  I find that I am closer to God when I am in nature, feeling His presence in everything and everyone.  He truly is everywhere and I feel that saying Amen shouldn't be a dismissal of a conversation with God, but should rather be an acknowledgment of His continuing presence.  The world comes even more alive when I am reminded that it moves and breathes with the Spirit of God.  After I turned back to watch the river, I took to staring at the mountainside along the opposite bank.  Trees thickly covered the mountain and as I stared at the greenery of the millions of leaves, my eyes unfocused while at the same time focusing intently.  The concrete scenery before me turned into swirls of paint and color and feeling.  As the breeze stirred the leaves, I saw the mountain, the trees, nature, breathe, faintly but surely to those who look.  It breathed with God's lungs and served as a testament that He lives. 

Morning

I consider myself a night person, so I usually stay up until 2am and wake up at 10:30 or 11:00 the next day.  My dog woke me up this morning at 8:00am.  I was not pleased.  However, I looked outside at the fresh day while country music played on the radio in the living room and it was amazingly wonderful.  Right now the sun isn't high enough to be shining on all of my yard but is warming up the tops of the trees.  I forgot how beautiful morning is and how awesome it feels to be up early (ish) and know you have a whole day before you.  There are two magic hours for photographers.  The one I most think about is in the evening when the light gets golden and shadows grow long.  The one I most neglect, which is also amazing, is the morning hours at just this time.  The light is still golden and wonderful, but there is something brighter and more promising about it.  I have nothing planned today, I'm up at 8am, the day is beautiful.  I'm excited to see what today will hold.  I'll have to wake up earlier more often.  I've been missing out.

McAfee Knob Hike

Today I went on a hike with one of my friends, Jon, to a gorgeous place called McAfee Knob.  It's a very long hike, mainly uphill, and then you come out at the top of the mountain and can stand on huge, jutting rocks that overlook the valley below and the blue ridge mountains all around.  We came to the top of the mountain during the magic hour (a photography reference) when the light was getting golden and the shadows began to stretch out.  The view was fantastic.  We looked down on rolling hills thickly covered with trees and cleared areas for fields and a few houses here and there.  Mainly it was the hills, the mountains, and the trees.  Civilization had stepped lightly over this grand stretch of country side, leaving only hesitant footsteps here and there as it went.  The blue haze that covers the mountains grew thicker and thicker the farther you look out until far away mountains were barely visible as a faint line of darker blue against the horizon. 


Soon after we arrived at the top, we met two men about our age (in their twenties) who were trying to hike most or all of the Appalachian Trail over the summer.  One of them, nicknamed "Spoon," was trying to go as far as he could before having to go back and return to college in Georgia.  He got his nickname along the way by losing his spoon on the trail somewhere.  After that, he had to carve out his own spoon, which he said was more like a spatula, and eat with it instead.  The other man had a large, thick beard, despite looking young.  They were both very nice and offered to take a picture of me and Jon without being asked.  After talking with them a while, we went to explore the rest of the outcropping and marvel at the views.  Jon kept taking pictures of me, some of which he tried to do without me noticing.  I appreciate that because I'm a fan of candid shots and I hope he got some good ones. 


The hike itself was great and torturous.  Both of us were slick with sweat and the gnats and flies swarmed our heads like crazy.  Of course, both of us being college kids, neither of us put on bug spray, so they were having a field day, dive bombing our ears and going for our eyes.  I go a little stir crazy when gnats swarm me, so I was slapping them away and threatening them with horrible buggy deaths for a long time-they were not intimidated in the least.  I would go to wipe gunk of my mouth and instead smear salty sweat all over my lips-hooray.  Sweat dampened my shirt in the middle of my back and took up residence at my hairline.  I'm not a big sweater-it takes quite a lot-but the hike was pretty rough and it was hot.  The temperature was, overall, perfect for the hike.  It was sunny and hot but we had shade under the trees and a breeze would roll through every now and again.  By the time we got to the top, I had a persistent headache and my joints were screaming at me.  I'm not in the best of shape, but I did make it, so that's something! 


There were beautiful flowers and rock formations along the trail.  Huge boulders stood sentry over the path, covered in lichens.  We climbed one and there were plants and even trees growing on it at the top.  There were several cool types of mushrooms.  Some were deep orange, some were plain and tan, and others were small and brown but grew out of tiny holes in a fallen tree.  At one point the trail passed through an area that had once been cleared out for the power lines to go through.  It was beautiful because nature had crept in and obstinately put its stamp over man's handiwork.  Thick, flowering bushes grew up and down the hills over top the cut trees, which had been left as they were once they had been cut down-as far as we could tell. 


It started getting dark as we were about 15min away from the car.  It was almost dark enough for flashlights by the time we came out of the trees and crossed the road.  On the way back we saw a deer and several frogs hopping across the road-of course the deer wasn't hopping...  Anyway, lightning started dancing across the sky at frequent intervals, brightening the whole sky to electric blue and purple.  Some of the strikes we saw bright and sharp in front of us and it was wonderful.  After a while it started raining, then pouring as we neared Blacksburg.  It rained so hard the last little bit of our drive that we had to go very slowly because it was hard to see the lines in the road.  

Once we reached the apartment, I stepped out onto a flooded parking lot and heavy, cold rain.  After we showered and changed in the apartment, we went out to eat with two of Jon's friends.  The food was more than welcome after the long, tiresome hike and we feasted like champs.  I tried some weird cheesy, spicy shrimp dip on peta bread even though I don't like shrimp and it tasted fantastic!  After good conversation and good food, we left to go to our cars.  Jon walked me to my vehicle holding an enormous umbrella and we parted ways, saying we would meet up again in two days to go to the Cascades.  He just graduated from VT and had never been to any of the local hiking trails-that was why we went out on this excursion-so we were trying to make sure he got to see some before he left to go pursue the uncertain.  

He is sad when he says he will miss me and his roommates, and college in general, but he is also excited at the uncertainty of his situation.  There is something thrilling, to him, of being able to potentially go anywhere and not be tied down to anything.  He's never been in love, though he seems to truly want to, so hopefully he'll find love when he goes out into the rest of the world.  We were talking about life and religion during the car ride home and I said my purpose in life was to try new things, live my life, enjoy it, love others, and try to be a good person along the way.  I said that no matter what your culture or religion is, loving others and trying to be a good person is something all people can share and aspire to.  And although Jon is atheist, he gave an amen to that. 






Update on the marketing job: I decided to decline it and work two jobs closer to home.  I'll be working at Food Lion and at a restaurant when it opens this summer.  I figure I'll be able to make more money that way and keep more of it, since I don't have to pay rent.  Besides, I'll be close to my friends and everyone should work in the service industry at least once.

Artists

I loved this!


 (It may take a while for the picture to load.)


http://www.nettserier.no/jellyvampire/1304892000/

As The World Falls Down

There is no other world but this.  There is no other time but now. 


In a silver ballgown made of silk and starlight she steps tentatively along the outer edge of the ballroom, looking for him.  A kaleidoscope of color pulses and changes, filling the room with mystery and a heart pounding sense of possibility.  Dancers twirl and swoop past, laughing and smiling and longing and waiting in the chances all around.  Candles and orbs of floating light illuminate the grand ballroom enough to give teasing glimpses of faces, masked and unmasked, through the crowd.  She steps behind a pillar and emerges from the other side, voluminous skirt rustling quietly and tilting back and forth as she walks, making her feel like a fleeting princess in a dream.  Maybe this is a dream, maybe it isn't real.  But the feeling is so true it takes over her entire body.  The hope, the anticipation, the possibility; frightening and alluring and exciting all at once.  A wonderful mixture of yearning and slight unease that winds through her veins and makes her skin flush pink and alive.  He is here, somewhere, amongst the candles and the dancers.  Her heart flutters as she peers around, absorbing the sights and sounds, making them a part of her being.  The music and the magic of this night will lead her to him, perhaps, perhaps.  She doesn't know who he is, but she knows he holds all the world's wonder.  She would find it and him and they would be hers.  Perhaps, perhaps.  There.  A shoulder covered in dark blue.  It throbs with significance even from so far away.  The pulsing of the music guides her steps, leads her forward to a destiny she can choose to grab a hold of.  The crowd parts and swirls back together like a living thing.  Sometimes opening a path to him, sometimes barring her way.  A dark brown wave of hair beneath a mask.  Follow it, follow it.  Gone.  She has lost it in the crowd.  A touch on her elbow makes her turn round and see him.  A black and silver mask hides half of his face, but the brown eyes send a rush of emotion through her that lodges in her throat and stirs in her stomach.  With the locking of their eyes, a connection is established in the magic of the night that cannot be undone.  He slides a hand past her waist to rest on the small of her back while another hand pulls her right one up in his.  She places her other hand lightly on his upper arm, fingers tingling with the subtle warmth that passes through his shirt.  They begin the dance, swirling and stepping and spinning together like the others, yet like only they can.  They become one soul, a union that frightens and excites at the same time.  The hand on her back pulls her gently yet persistently closer to his body, making heat rise through her stomach, up past her neck, and into her cheeks.  She resists ever so slightly, just to feel the determined pull forward.  She fancies she can see his heart pounding through the fabric over his chest and knows he is watching hers pulse to the music around them and the music within them.  She chances another look up into his eyes and is swept up into them.  Falling, floating, flying, sinking.  The world is falling down around them but the two stay aloft on the pure, solid power of electric connection between them.  He takes her by the hand and leads her through the invisible people that must still be there, on some plane that no longer matters.  They stop on the stone balcony, moonlight cutting clear and bright through the night sky and bathing their figures in its glow.  She reaches up and slowly, with bated breath, peels back his mask.  He is a stranger and he is all she knows, now and forever.  He takes the edges of her delicate silver silk mask and reveals a face as beautiful as hope itself.  Captured in the tilt of her nose and the curves of her cheeks is the allure of what if.  His strong features respond to hers with definition, with what is and what will be.  His hand returns to the small of her back and pulls her forward until she is on the brink of a connection that sends blood slamming through her arteries, urging her forward and the thrill of it all making her pull back.  But she cannot pull away entirely, that would be giving up the possibility.  One hand comes up and traces her jawline, fingers resting under her chin as the thumb brushes her bottom lip.  His eyes, looking down at his prize, both asks the question and tells the answer as he leans slowly forward.  Her hands come up to rest against his broad chest, feeling the warmth there, pushing against him but not truly wanting to be released.  With a tilt upward, the moon greets her face as his closes in.  Finally, at the last moment, she leans forward and lifts up slightly on her toes to join her possibility with reality.  Their lips meld in soft, giving, warmth that melts them the whole way through and bonds them together.  


There is no other world but this.  There is no other time but now.
As the world falls down.

All My Lovin' (The Beatles!)

I won't give you all my love.
No matter how hard you try
You will never have it all.


You will share it with my cat
and you will share it with my mother.
You'll have to make do
with what my friends don't get.
I hope you can live on what's left
Because I can't give you more than that.


But what you get will be enough.
It will be more than you need
and all you can hope for.


After all, there's a whole lot of universe out there
And no one here knows
where it stops.

Marketing Job

I had a phone interview today for a paid summer internship with Plow and Hearth.  I would be writing product descriptions, etc for their website and print advertising.  They gave me two assignments, I suppose to see what I can do.  So, with absolutely no experience, I tried my hand at writing a product description for a "Whimsical Duck Watering Can" and "Tab Top Curtains."  I looked up examples from Amazon and other places on their site and I think it went fairly well.  I'm not sure though, since I've never done this before, but we'll see!  


Anyway, when looking through their website, I came across this: 
http://www.plowhearth.com/product.asp?pcode=6574


How adorable is that!? 


Also this:
http://www.plowhearth.com/product.asp?pcode=10982

I go a little crazy over miniature things, so this is wonderful to me.  I lack the money and space to be a practicing miniature model enthusiast, but I think I have the passion for it.  So I guess I'm a  theoretical miniature model enthusiast.  How lame is that?  Whatever.

Writing Out Loud

You know how sometimes you have to talk about an issue out loud to someone to work through it?  Well, I figure a blog is kind of the same thing.  I'll talk about a lot of random things and personal revelations here because writing them down helps me figure them out.  I'm trying to teach myself, not really preach it to someone else, fyi.


Anyway, I'm working on (and by "working on" I mean: think about it every now and then and berate myself for not working on them) two stories that will hopefully turn into short books.  One is called The Contract and is a scifi mini dystopia concerning a modeling agency and one girl's dream to become a model.  The other, as cliche as it may sound in the wake of a booming vampire/werewolf craze, is centered around a small continent and the struggle between the werewolves and humans that live there.  It is discouraging to work for two or three hours on a page or less than a page when I can read 100 pages of someone else's book in a single hour.  It gives me a new appreciation for how long it must have taken the authors to write their books.  If I wrote only one page every day, then I could totally write a full book and edit it in a single year.  That scenario depends on me actually writing every day, however, that does not fit with my recent trend.  When I think of how long it takes me to write so little, I get discouraged and go do something else, which leads to me getting even less done than if I had labored for two hours over a single page.  I need to change my habits if I seriously want to be a writer.  Even if neither of my stories make it to the publishing stage, I still will have gotten over a major hurdle by actually finishing a book for once.  I have started so many books over the years but have never completed one.  One of the major problems with procrastinating on my stories is that I forget the feel of the story and exactly what's happening, so I have to go back and brush up on the details before continuing.  By the time I stop reading, I don't feel like writing any more, so that's got to change. 


Even if I don't feel like it, I have to write every day to get better.  I may look back on the books I spent so much time and effort on and think they're awful, but writing mediocre books and improving is a whole lot better than being a great writer who never finishes anything.  All of the cheesy romance novelists are doing better than me because they actually finished their stories and got them published.  Some of them are truly awful, and hopefully I write better than that, but they are still more successful than me at this point for even finishing their books at all.  Don't get me wrong, some romance novels are good, but the majority I've come across make me flinch at the bad writing.  Even so, cudos to the authors for being published.  That's more than I can say right now.  If I do end up writing a mediocre book, I can still hold it proudly in my hands and say that I wrote it and I finished it.  Writing it will help me understand what it takes to write a full book and will give me practice, allowing me to get better in the future.  Plus, I can make my friends and family read it, so I'll have some sort of audience. 


One of the hardest parts of writing for me is rewriting.  I don't mean editing; editing is my THING.  One of my professors said that revision meant re-envisioning your work: looking at it in a different way, maybe even changing it in huge, sweeping ways.  I have learned, albeit slowly, that "writing is rewriting" and it's not the scary monster it seems to be.  As I see it, I've already written the thing, so going back to make it better is easier, less time consuming, and exciting.  I get to take something I've already created and make it better!  How cool is that?!  Yes, I may be trying to convince myself here, but whatever. 


I'm going to make it my goal not only to write in this blog approximately every day, but to finish both of those stories by the end of this year.  Ready...Set...GO!

Spending Time, Spending Money

I always feel guilty for being mad at someone or thinking bad things about someone if they spend money on me.  I think a bad thought and then feel bad when I remember that they just took me out to dinner or they just bought me a present.  This is an unhealthy way to value a person.  No amount of money or presents can make up for being a jerk.  I would rather someone be nice to me and spend time with me than be mean and spend money on me.  Generosity is a good thing but it only means something when coupled with genuine kindness.  In short, I should stop feeling bad about disliking a person even if they do nice things for me.  Money truly can't buy happiness and it doesn't make up for rudeness or coldness by itself. 

Blogging as a Blog

I don't write in my blog very often and I don't keep up with a diary.  This seems an odd thing for a serious English major: not to write much outside of class.  Writing by hand is too slow for me, but I like typing and a blog gives me the sense of being published, even though anyone can do it and probably no one actually reads this.  My creative writing professor stressed keeping a journal and writing in it every day.  Regardless of the quality of your writing or whether or not it will ever see the light of day outside of your journal isn't important.  The process of writing every day helps with discipline, practice, and the creative process.  I know this, but I'm negligent, so I'm going to try to write here every day with something or another.  I guess it's time to try my hand at using my blog as an actual blog.  This should be fun and I'm looking forward to the journey!  I hope I actually follow through with this.

My Everything

He was my everything.  Being with him made me so happy I didn’t quite know how to act.  I wasn’t good enough for him.  I often hated myself and cried and had frequent emotional breakdowns where I knew beyond a doubt that I was hateful, mean, hopeless, and totally without value.  I couldn’t understand why he would want to stay with someone like me, who acted up the way I did for seemingly no reason whatsoever.  I feared I was too needy.  I feared I was too pathetic.  I feared no one would want me since I didn’t even like myself and I kept being such a bitch.  I came up with a hundred, give or take a million, introspective guesses why I was so messed up, but none ever got me any closer to happiness.  They reinforced my self-loathing and the problem escalated.

One night, sometime after midnight as usual, I felt another attack of helpless unhappiness coming on.  He was stretched out on his bed, a thick dark-blue cover pulled up to his waist, propped up on one elbow with a dated laptop open next to him, absorbed in what he was reading.  I had been sitting in a chair, legs propped up on the bed, intermittently reading one of my favorite books.  I told him I felt wrong.  He looked up from his web comic, concern shifting the tilt of his eyebrows and a slight crease dividing the two.  “Wrong?” he asked me.  “Like how?”

But I didn’t know how.  I was just a stupid, hopeless creature who brought sadness and unease into the bedroom with me half the nights I spent with him.  I talked on and on, trying to figure it out.  He prompted me with questions, tried to comfort me with sad eyes and a hand rubbing up and down my leg.  I didn’t want to see his eyes looking at me.  I didn’t want him to touch me: a hateful thing who couldn’t be happy with every reason in the world to be blissful and who couldn’t love herself no matter how hard she tried.  Eventually I couldn’t take staring at my knees, feeling him watch me, eyes willing me to find contentment somehow.  I glued my eyes to the floor, got up from where I was sitting, and closed myself up in the small, windowless bathroom with the door that doesn’t lock.  I sat on the toilet and stared at the tub, not really seeing it, and tried to figure out why I couldn’t be happy and why I couldn’t stand myself.  My ears rang loudly as I sat in the quiet of my tiny, self-made world of confusion and malcontent.

I sat there staring and thinking and listening to the whine in my ears and the small noises the shifting toilet seat made that seemed unbearably loud in that small room.  I thought.  And thought.  And understood.  I don’t know why or how exactly I came to know it, but I finally hit upon the real reason for my months of incredible imbalance.  Perhaps it was a revelation straight from God; I believe it must be so, because I was so clueless.  It was so simple.  I could even fix it.

I missed my friends.  Those loyal friends from high school that I barely saw now that I had started college.  Those wonderful girls who knew me, had known, me for years.  Those blessed people whose love made me feel worth something and brought out the best in me.  I had unknowingly been trying to fill the hole left by their absence with my boyfriend’s love.  His was wonderful and fulfilling in its own way, but it was a different type of love than what my friends and I shared.  No matter how glorious our romantic love was, it could never ever fill the gap where my friend’s love should be.  I had been frustrated and unhappy because his love wasn’t enough and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. 

He was my everything.  His hugeness in my life made me small, unbalanced, and unhappy.  But I have my own friends who love me and who I need to be around more because they are crucial to my happiness.  They can never be replaced by romantic love and their company is as essential to me as shelter and food.  I have my own interests and goals apart from my boyfriend.  He is not my everything.  He is a wonderful part of my life, but still just a part of a much larger life.  I am balanced now.  I am happy now.  I know all the pieces that make up my everything and they are many and varied, just the way I like them. 

Small Talk

Small talk is the most useless form of communication known to mankind.  Its only purposes are to fill silences and to extend politeness, or at least the appearance of politeness, to others.  Antisocial husbands who point and grunt communicate much more in their behavior than those who engage in small talk.  Pointing and grunting is direct and tells others what you want, which is more than small talk can boast.  Even lying is a more useful interaction.  Lying often smooths over conflict, or potential conflict, and usually helps the liar achieve some goal.  Small talk achieves nothing, reveals nothing, wastes time, and can even form a barrier between individuals that prevents them from moving on to meaningful conversation. 

People advise against discussing religion, politics, or other touchy issues with others; this is a fairly well-established social rule.  I, however, love to delve into hot topics such as sex, religion, war, capital punishment, and a whole range of other taboo subjects as part of my ‘getting-to-know-you’ ritual.  I have never met someone who was offended by such conversation and I always have deep, meaningful exchanges when I talk about those things.  Rather than dabble in meaningless chatter, I pave the way forward to connection and friendship by bringing up hot-button issues from the get-go.  I have found that most people are passionate about, and enjoy, talking about such issues as long as the discussion remains respectful-which it always does.  Hearing people’s opinions on hot topics gives me huge insights into who they are as individuals and how they view the world and their relation to it; they also learn more about what makes me ME at a fundamental level. 

If I don’t particularly care to get to know someone, or if I just want to show some brief politeness before heading on my way, I use small talk to effectively end conversation quickly, which allows me to move on to others I really enjoy being around.  It’s not that I dislike the person; it’s just that I have nothing else to say but I want to appear nice and sociable.  Sometimes I actually do dislike the person so I use small talk because I don’t want to make enemies while at the same time I want to discouraging further talking.  For me, small talk is, at best, a convenient but often irritating social tool that allows me to be polite with minimal effort.  I know almost blow-by-blow how the conversations will go and I can judge when I am permitted to move on and talk to someone else or to go do something else.  First I’ll say “how are you?”  Then they’ll respond with “good, how are you?”  Then I’ll smile a little, bob my head a few times, and respond with “good,” regardless of how I actually feel (no one will tell a fellow small-talker that they are having a totally shitty day).  Sometimes I’ll even spice it up and say “pretty good”-just to keep them on their toes.  This exchange is usually followed by some observation of the weather or an obvious, neutral statement about the immediate surroundings.  This could range from “it’s kinda’ windy today” to “I should have brought my jacket, but I left it at home.”  Sometimes, if someone is feeling creative and wild, they’ll say something like “when do you think it’ll start?” or “wow, there’s a lot of people here.”  Small talk is generally accompanied by pretending to look at something interesting in the immediate vicinity, head bobbing, and appropriate monosyllabic responses.  Small talk tells me that someone is just trying to be polite and they don’t actually care, so I try not to waste their time and instead oblige them with boring, unrevealing dialogue. 

Small talk is the bane of real emotional and intellectual exchange.  All meaningful conversation is squelched by its uninspired and predictable back-and-forths.  If you actually want to get to know someone or to grow closer to them, steer clear of this social evil.  Joke, be sarcastic in a good-naturedly kind of way (these tactics tend to work best on guys because they always fire off an equally quirky and fun remark), talk about what you really care about, and genuinely try to learn more about the other person.  Treat everyone like you’ve known them for years and assume that if they actually do have something interesting to say about the weather, they will tell you without being prompted.