In the mud in the maze of her imagination...

I really don't have much to write, so I'm just going to describe the scene:

Jazz music.

I'm checking my MySpace, because it's working again. The mother of an old best friend has made her own profile. Oh, America.

There are pictures - sadly, regretfully, way too many pictures - littering my closet doors and my desk of a con artist.

The green marker won't fit all the way into the beerstein I use as a marker holder (except for green ones).

Jazz ends. NP portion of NPR resumes.

My left shoulder starts to hurt for some weird reason, the way it usually hurts for some weird reason.

I look to my left and see my one lone hat draped over its one lone home, wondering if it actually is trendy or if I just imagine it is when I set out to wear it.

Another more prominent picture, dusty yet bright as ever, smiles forward at me from nearly two years ago. I think about how he smelled and wonder if I'll ever hug him long enough again to find out if he still smells like that. It was always a unique signature of his.

Collages on the bulliten board remind me of the way I like to make art and the way it really has no direction. Ever. And I like that.

Vintage pin: "OUR NEXT PRESIDENT - JOHN F. KENNEDY." I wonder how people go about knowing to collect these things in advance. Were antiques ever modern?

Ooh - mosquito bite! Right knee. How the hell did it end up there, under pajama pants? Friendly little bastard, aren't we?

Spanishy jazz. It's all about the jazzplay tonight, I guess.

Spoke too soon. Ella Fitzgerald? Make up your mind, guys.

Going to see my sister in a week and a half. I find it amusing how bouncy balls account for some of the longest-lasting jokes and the best-had laughs in any given lifetime.

Walking and working and writing and reflecting - it's been kind of a funny little summer, hasn't it? Big plans, big dreams, and never knowing quite where to start or how. Or if.

It's late. Not by my normal standards, but it's late. Or it's early. I can never know which is more correct.

Time to put my thoughts to rest.

Standing on the precipice of big time. Again.

"Perfect love drives out all fear."

But most people go away. Where? Into themselves? Out of themselves? Flirting with disaster all around themselves?

I don't get it anymore. I want to, but I just don't. It's something that came so easy to me before the day I wrote it down; now that I have, all it has become are words on paper and thoughts thrown to the wind.

Where did it go? Will it come back? Who will find who first? Is anyone looking? Is anyone there? Will it ever happen again?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's alright; I realize I'm being vague enough. I wrote this one more for me than for you. Why did I post it, then? Because I damn well can.



(...Huh?)

Another Frank Sinatra kind of twilight

It's funny how the memory of love can leave you in such bittersweet enchantment. Just the sight of the stars some nights can send me to that infinitely untoucheable "back there" when I am sure "back there" had never been there.

I suppose the world would be a much uglier place without dreams and kisses and all the softest things you can ever remember all in a pair of spell-binding eyes. And truly - where would we be without the butterflies and the firsts and the uncertainty and the hesitance? ...Still in ninth grade.

Certainly, sometimes it hurts to be one unit rather than part of a set. But to know the difference implies that perhaps that long-ago time filed in the "back there" section of life is, in fact, not so far back.

There is nothing for me but to love you
Just the way you look tonight.

Breakdown

I hope this old train breaks down.
Then I could take a walk around
And see what there is to see,
And time is just a melody...
All the people in the street
Walk as fast as their feet can take them.
I just roam through town,
And though my windows got a view,
The frame I'm looking through
Seems to have no concern for me now;
So for now

I need this here
Old train to breakdown.
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown.

This engine screams out loud,
Saying the beat gonna crawl westbound.
So I don't even make a sound,
Because its gonna sting me when I leave this town,
All the people in the street
That I'll never get to meet...
If these tracks don't bend somehow,
And I got no time
That I got to get to
Where I don't need to be,
So I

I need this here

Old train to breakdown.

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown.

I need this here
Old train to breakdown.
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown.
I wanna break on down,
But I can't stop now.
Let me break on down...

But you can't stop nothing
If you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind
That you kept in, you know.
You don't know nothing,
But you don't need to know.
The wisdom's in the trees,
Not the glass windows.
You can't stop wishing
If you don't let go,
But things that you find
And you lose, and you know
You keep on rolling
Put the moment on hold -
The frame's too bright,
So put the blinds down low

I need this here
Old train to breakdown.
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown.
I need this here

Old train to breakdown.

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown.

I wanna break on down,

But I can't stop now.

"Yeah, shoot."

Today I laughed so hard I cried.

A ramble of sorts

So I guess you know what to expect.

It seems like a lot of people are in relationships these days, and even still most of my closest friends are as single as they come. It seems like no one is ever so sure of themselves, regardless of their availabilty classification.

That's one thing I've noticed. Another is coffee. I always thought it was so sophisticated, but it's just coffee; it's just a drink that makes your pee smell like... coffee.

There's no secret to smelling good, either. Perfume, people; that's it.

Work can take a lot out of you, and yet we go to college so we can work our lives away. Sitting on front porches, swinging the down the days sounds like a much better idea, doesn't it?

It's all a big Catch-22. The mystery is slowly being squeezed out of adulthood. Every secret, every ambiguity is ever-so-delicately being revealed. We're not children anymore, and this isn't quite the Kansas in which we grew up. Tea parties and hide-and-seek afternoons are replaced with pina coladas and zombie summers spent desperately trying to make tan-lines and flatten abs.

And it's not that one is better than or more preferable or even comprable to the other. They're just... different. Then and now are certainly different.

I know that probably made zero sense, and even I didn't bother reading over it before I hit "Publish;" it's what I was thinking just now.

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.