Golly.

I just read over some things I wrote this past year - poetry, prose, unclassifiables.

I'm kind of a wacko.

In my life, I'll love you more.

There.

Pause it.

Did you feel that? Did chills run up and down your spine just now? Didn't it make you feel so overwhelmingly... something? Didn't it make you want to cry or laugh or run around in a field like some moon child with flowers in your hair?

I can't explain it, but certain songs have that sound to them that just... I don't know. I can't put into words the way the melody makes me feel.

What really got this ball rolling was "In My Life" by The Beatles. Those opening chords really do it to me, whatever "it" is, just like "Dancing in the Moonlight" and, on occasion, "Ride Wit Me" - you know, the part where Nelly goes "boo, boo, boo" before the song even starts.

...Don't get fresh with me.

The point is, I can't stop listening to that song. I've been replaying the opening part at various times throughout the day and it has consistently brought back the same feeling of whatever.

And there you have it.

Baba O'Riley

I'm an adult. I am friends with people who are engaged and a few who are already married. Some are working on building respectable resumes and have their sights set on this grad school or that. Still others have perfected the art of balancing their own worldly concerns on one hip and an infant on the other.

And here I am, not knowing if I'll ever be mature enough to commit to something as serious as marriage while discussing how an ideal wedding would play out, twisting on my Target high heels and being paid little more than minimum wage at two jobs that show nothing of my potential, selling China-made handbags and Egyptian cotton sheets like both were being erased from the world market for all of eternity, a concept which, not unlike marriage, I have difficulty comprehending.

Given all of the above, I suppose you'd think I'm disgruntled, upset about this lot I surely presume I've been handed which has me waking up at the ass-crack of dawn most mornings to return to the same routine I surely presume I'll be performing every day for the rest of my presumably mortal life.

You'd be wrong, though, if you thought that.

This is the U-nited States of goddamned America, and I'm a college student. In all honesty, I don't want the responsibility of being a credible individual. With my silly paid-by-the-hour jobs, nobody has to think twice about how much I know. They probably think I am inspired to write poetry exactly the same as everyone else is inspired to write poetry when it rains and came from my Mama one hot summer mornin' in Johjah or perhaps instead from me Mum in the dead of winter one dreadfully cold December night in the centre of London, depending upon whichever accent I decide to adorn myself with on any given day. I'm your run-of-the-mill, maybe-I'll-get-there-someday 19 year-old girl sipping on Texas-sized daqs and playing that never-ending game of "Would You Rather...?" in hopes that someday I'll come up with the best worst scenario. I don't even care if you catch me dancing in front of the mirror.

So if that's not enough for me to justify myself to myself, I don't know what is. I am not yet old enough for this to be any real disappointment; there isn't one bit of real pressure or strain.

All the married couples can do it every night. The mommies can hold their sweet babies and know they've truly created a miracle. The interns and research assistants can bust their asses to make someone else credible and in the process better their prospective futures at least twofold - at least.

And while they're doing that, I'm going to dance in the rain and then go write that poetry.

There you go.

Sometimes all your good intentions fall short of the amazing ends you'd hoped they might accomplish. Sometimes the things you thought would be good for everyone were in fact good for nothing but bad. Sometimes you aim and shoot and the moment is remembered as the above.

Whenever that happens, I like to remind myself that the world didn't stop, so surely nothing was too harmful.

And surely that picture is ridiculous without the blackouts.

What I Love:

1. The smell of rain, Rick's Wait style
2. Loud laughter.
3. People who tell me I mispronounce "sure."

Oh. My.

Gah.

I remember when in my younger, more awkward teen years people I knew, hardly knew, or really didn't know at all would comment on "...how BIG you've gotten," how "...grown UP you are," and/or the fact that no, for the umpteenth time, "Well, you're sure not the little Maggie that would hide behind her daddy's knees!" That bothered the hell out of me.

And I sit here today, parusing through MySpace bulletins like it's my job, and it occurs to me that the girl I always considered to be a little sister to me is, in reality, not so little anymore. She's going to be a high school freshman and her brother (Get this:) is going to be graduating next May.

...What the hell?

Granted I would never, ever mention to either of them that it's really strange that they grew up, as planned. I suppose it's just not what I expected.

Now that I've said my piece, I will put on my gauchos, light a cinnamon-scented candle, and take the straightener to my still virgin hair and prepare for an evening at the theatre with some of the lovliest, sorta grown-up ladies I know.

Wouldn't it be loverly?

I heard another piano of unknown origin. It was just a few minutes ago. It made me smile.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

How many blue cars to get to the center of Dale Mabry?

Tripping hard, falling down onto the ground
Because I can't stand up
and I can't fall down,
Because I'm somewhere in the middle of this...

The afternoon was hot and stuck to my skin like a dirty Band-Aid. I always loved summer, but I hated the humidity and burning metal on the sides of sunglasses. I had been itching to come home and enjoy the everythingness of those precious months away from demanding syllabi and playing catch-up when I "forgot" to keep up-to-date with assignments, and here it was, the sweltering glitter that blanketed May, June, July, and August, and here I was, stunned by just how... hot it was.

I was on my way to work - you know, the old three-to-nine shift - when I decided the radio wasn't doing it for me. I popped in a CD without looking to see what it was, hoping I could surprise myself again. The first track started slow and soft and immediately I was brought back to my freshman year of high school, perhaps four years ago to the date.

I thought of that concert we went to and the incredible shirt-shaped sunburn with which I left, those pictures we took and the T-shirts we had every group sign. I thought of how loud it got when the night crept in and the headline band began its awesome performance. I thought of the ride back home and your dad and Kathy and how much you hated her, and presently I began to wonder if you still hated her. That got me to thinking about how we don't talk these days, and then, naturally, my mind wandered to that sentence that has lately been Sharpied upon most of my thoughts:

Look at how much I've changed since then.

It's incredible, really, to look back a mere four years into the past and discover you are someone you truly were not. I always imagine it like this: if my then self were to meet my present self, would my then self really believe me? Would I know I was actually the same me?

Since I burned that CD, I have done a lot of growing up, diagonally, and horizontally (but never down). I have experienced a lot, done a lot, and had a lot happen to me that my then self would have deemed out of the realm of possibilities, such as that most unfortunate accident last January, going commando to a job interview, giving a speech in front of several thousand strangers, presenting a report in a foreign language on someone very near and dear to my heart without ever choking on my words, and boys. My sister has graduated college and I am forced to accept the fact that she is a real, live adult, my parents are actually my friends, I understand how credit cards work, and I have decided exactly where the line is drawn between "I should laugh" and "I shouldn't laugh, but I can't help it." I have learned that taking action (or not taking action) that you are politically, morally, socially, relgiously, or otherwise not supposed to take (or not not take) can be justified if you learn even the tiniest thing from said action (or non-action) by my own experience (or lack of experience). Most specifically, I have suffered through a severely broken heart, several inhibiting obsessions, and inumerable bottomless pits of despair which, despite all preconceived notions regarding bottomless pits of despair, in fact turned out to have a most tightly stretched trampoline at the bottom, waiting in sheer anticipation to emotionally bounce me right back to the place I had been before.

I guess my point is this: I know I've been writing a lot of similar things lately (at least that's how it seems to me), but life has really picked up somewhere between those blooming days of high school and the following four summers.

I am proud of who I am. I am making my own way.

If I was a rich girl...

Looks like I just may be one by the end of the summer. I've got the whole two-job thing going, and I'm making the hourly rate I was hoping for.

Now if the sun would just come out...

Finger things

It's funny, this thing we do. It's like I we never ended - we've been going ever since we met.

And you know what? It makes me love you all the more.

Your Song

It's a little bit funny this feeling inside.
I'm not one of those who can easily hide.
I don't have much money, but boy if I did
I'd buy a big house where we both could live.

If I was a sculptor, but then again - no -
Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show...
I know it's not much but it's the best I can do:
My gift is my song and this one's for you.

And you can tell everybody this is your song.
It may be quite simple but now that it's done,
I hope you don't mind,
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you're in the world.

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss.
Well a few of the verses... well, they've got me quite cross.
But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song;
It's for people like you that keep it turned on.

So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do -
You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue.
Anyway, the thing is - what I really mean:
Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen...

What a silly, gloomy little day.

I forgot how much I loved this poem.

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower,

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day,

Nothing gold can stay.

A reflection

I heaved myself out of bed this morning at the ungodly hour of 5:00 to get in some last-minute studying before a 7:30 exam. I towed my notes to the Union to review them and bask in the yellow light of the deserted environment that is somehow representative of this city. I sat down, coffee steaming under the black lid of my cliche paper cup, and pulled out the papers that had become my best friends in the past few days. My eyes glazed, knees began their characteristic shake, and my mind wandered without restraint to the thought that this was indeed it.

Yes; this is it.

I have successfully made it through my first year of college, less one remaining exam. I am thriving in this atmosphere and admittedly somewhat reluctant to leave it for four months for the home which has always been home. I am not a freshman, but a girl who doesn't need to ask for directions. I am not an inexperienced neophyte, scared and confused about what to do and with whom to do it, but someone who has drawn conclusions where previously they were unfeasible. I am not a beginner here because I have been here.

I thought about football games and rainy afternoons dedicated to nothing but bonding with someone who has slowly come to be my best friend. I thought about nights spent in the stadium and the few shooting stars that brightened my admittedly weary soul. I thought about the things I did that I was scared to do and how they brought be closer to myself, a person with whom I was previously unacquainted. I thought about Moe's and high heels and pouring rain, flat tires and parties and pictures. I thought about Halloween decorations and Christmas lights, Valentine's Day giggles and the greenest seventeenth of March; letters and crosswords and long-distance phone calls; basketball and fountains and coffees and our ever-hopeful flag football team; flip-flops and buybacks and collages and posters; the boys that made my head spin and the girls that warned me when I was flighty; public transportation and marathon study sessions; the flash-light guard dog that fascinated more than I figured and the afternoons of stadium sun-soaking that always ended in tour groups.

Snapshots of the past eight months reeled in my mind, making a blur of everything until it was so beautiful I couldn't even feel it.

I have learned so much that I can never put into words, things that everyone must learn on their own. Most importantly, I have concluded, I learned how to be happy. I believe that is the most valuable skill any person can have. You are the only constant guaranteed, so you may as well learn to enjoy life itself and all the oddities you encounter along the way.

I finished my coffee, grabbed my bag, and strolled in the freshest morning air to lay waste to AFH4450, Section 5664.

"You're casting a shadow on me..."

I've been reading over some old stuff I wrote at the beginning of fall semester. It really is funny just how much you forget that at the time seems to be the most important factor in pretty much everyone's life.

I have come to the conclusion that a person will change exactly as much as they think is completely impossible. If you had asked me at that time what my problem was, I'd make sure you actually meant problems when you said problem and proceed to rattle off a list of boys and other generally strange - yet incapacitating - concerns that truly plagued me. I would try not to cry, feel like an idiot, silently curse myself for telling you everything, and then lose it after you left. If you were to pose the same question to me now, I would reply that I am a bit tired at the moment but that otherwise I'm alright.

I don't really have a point. I'm typing to tell you something and I don't even know what I'm getting at. I guess it's just weird for me to read over these things and suddenly remember the little things that were soooooo important at the time.

...Shows how big of a deal they really were in retrospect.

Empty Sky (but not really)

At night I lay upon my bench and stare towards the stars.
The cold night air comes creeping in and home seems oh-so far.
If only I could swing upon those twinkling dots above,
I'd look down from the heavens upon the ones I love...

Who the hell is that?

I don't know. He was behind me and my dad at the Outback Bowl in January. I cropped my us out of the picture and zoomed in on his charming face.

But just like I have no earthly idea who that dude is, I really don't want to study. So I am going to sleep. Just thought I'd fill you in. Night night.

Exammer Jammer

Judging by the amount of snot coming out of my nose, today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you.

So even though the sky is pretty much anything but as clear as the one in this picture, I decided to put it on this post because it's nice to look at. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Here is a Chinese proverb that I have been contemplating for the past three months. I don't know that I agree with it, and I'm not even sure I see the difference. I just thought I would share:

"The palest ink is better than the best memory."

I think I have finally got down my interpretation of it, but I'm still thinking about it. Those Chinese...

I'll write something someday. I promise. It just may not be anytime soon.

Tra la la!

Hello. I am some jasmine. Here is a picture of me. I smell really good and have been following Maggie wherever she goes. She has no fucking clue where I'm coming from. Ever. But who really cares? I just look pretty and smell pretty and at the end of the day, that's about all a little flower like myself can do.

I'm gonna go frolic in the breeze. Peace.

Bloodless Sunday

Imagine my wonderment looking out the window on the way back to school tonight and seeing this beautiful splay of setting sun on canvas sky. How was I blind to life for so long?

That picture explains how I know everything will be alright, come what may.