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Do you ever take a step back from your life and think, "WHAT THE FUCK?"

I have recently come to the realization that my life is not only on a chain, but also a conglomeration of "Huh?"s and "ORLY?"s. I mean seriously: what the fuck.

I woke up this morning knowing something weird was going to happen today, and it did, but I can't tell you what it was because it's not something I can put into words. It's that feeling halfway between complete doom and complete freedom - the way the Earth looks right before a huge storm that never happens transcribed to human experience.

I have no idea what is going on. Maybe someone slipped more overdue Shirataki noodles into my soup when I was in the bathroom smelling the soap - I don't know. What I do know is that the world is either going to explode or implode at a time not too far from now, and then all this - the research, the interviewing, that bitchy little nurse who has it out for me - will amount to an ethnography of something no one will ever be able to read.

What the fuck.

How very pixelated of you.

This picture was taken in 2003. Four years is not a long time for world politics and global warming, strides in cancer research and understanding the fossil record. Four years is nothing to shake a stick at when you're looking at the big, albeit subjective, picture. It is, however, a very long time when those years encompass the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood.

Most of the six "kids" and single adult initially seen as the focal point of this picture have changed so dramatically since this picture was taken it almost shocks me to recall that there was a time before things are as they are today. Let's begin on the left, rotating clockwise through all seven persons.

This girl was always loud. I distinctly remember one time when we were kids that she was not allowed to come over to play because she would disrupt the quiet order and overthrow the hierarchy otherwise unchallenged in the Kennedy regime. It was no different when we graduated high school and the summer after she sought employment where I had been working for the past two years; her paycheck seemed to be based on hourly wages determined by the sheer volume of her voice when she was on the clock. I once made the grave mistake of going to a party with her ; apparently, beer sparks violent (and violently loud) debate among people of this kind. I drove her drunk and screaming person home, wondering how the hell she'd ever earn the respect she needed from a serious employer to get a job worth all I knew she was capable of achieving.

She is now in the Air Force. Her mother couldn't be more proud.

Moving on to the next person in the picture, a girl sporting a cow bandanna is utterly fascinated by whatever the girl across from her is doing. This person, incidentally, is me. I won't say much for myself; if you've read anything from the beginning, middle, and end of this long autobiography, you can easily see the change for yourself. I will indulge myself for a moment, however, and say that the girl in this picture was afraid of three things particularly: dogs, college, and her own hoo-hah. She is now accustomed to all three.

The next person you see was always a bitch. I haven't seen her since roughly the time this picture was taken. I assume not much has changed.

The woman in the black jacket who almost seems to be in the background has a rather tragic story of change, though her beauty still lives on. Here, you will observe a proud mother of one and a loving and happy wife who makes religion easy to understand. She teaches teens about how God relates to her and how He can relate to them, even if she has to admit her own flaws and shortcomings in doing so. She is in love with her husband and adores her daughter. Everything radiates from her in an aura of confidence and grace.

Four months after the camera clicked, her husband died instantly in a motorcycle accident. She got on with her life, remembering him daily but not letting the loss become a burden. A few months later, she found out she was pregnant and declined to teach religious education, fearing she would set a "bad example" for her students. Through everything, she held her head high and did not relinquish her faith. Today, she is in her second marriage to the father of her second child.

The girl next to this woman in the picture is an old childhood friend of mine - perhaps the closest friend I've ever had. Like me, she grew up in a religious family with one older sister just a block away. She is entirely into her faith and believed in the good of the Southern American lifestyle. Her mother always calls you shug [shuhg] instead of sugar in the thickest Alabama accent imaginable. This girl believes in the FFA, Jesus, and cole slaw.

Today, she is five months pregnant with her first son as a result of a young marriage gone sour. Her belly is beautiful.

The boy directly to her left is someone I've known since he was knee-high. Our families were always close. He, being a few years younger than me and perhaps rightly believing that girls are gross, always preferred to hang out with "the dads" whenever our families would get together, while I'd play with his littlesister and Erin would gossip with his older sister. He'd always been a cute little kid, but always that: a kid.

This picture was taken when he was a teenager, which was weird enough. Now he is in his first year of college. He's old enough that his little sister will have her driver's license this spring.

The last girl on the right is the most easily recognizable person in this picture. I will opt to bite my tongue and simply comment on the staying, sexualizing power some boys have on the girls they date.

I find it remarkable when looking back at old pictures how time can distort your reaction. Four years ago, this was just another picture taken in the airport when we had the Layover of Doom in Atlanta. Four years ago, this was just another picture from the National Catholic Youth Convention of 2003. Four years ago, these were just some people I was friends with or knew in passing.

Today, they are all their own persons. Today, they are all adults with their own stories, perhaps with the exception of that one bitchy girl.

Wrapped up like a douche

Today is perfectly wintry, even though it's not winter. Just thought I'd share the clouds.

R u my baby?

A veddy good night

I just came back from seeing West Side Story with my beaux. I truly enjoy a second musical, the first being Les Miserables.

I am done rescheduling my Spring schedule, twentieth and for all. I am also done with all necessary assignments for the semester, which is exciting. I rewarded myself by skipping class today, which was even more fulfilling than I ever could have dreamed. That's right; meganap.

Currently listening to Unprotected Sax on NPR and thinking about the cold weather tomorrow. I'll be sporting a turtleneck and perhaps a scarfie as well, just to be cute and overdone.

Something on me smells like heaven. I wish I could figure out what it is. Does that ever happen to you?

Time to indulge myself in a book not related to the classes I am SO over. Enjoy this beautiful night.

Oh, boy.

I finally got to register for spring classes today. Turns out I will taking some enlightening courses - ones which I'm excited about, yet weary to take because... well, because of all the work.

Truthfully, I've enjoyed being busy this semester. I've had the opportunity to do a few activities through UF but otherwise removed from it. I've had time enough to go home only once, but it made me truly appreciate that weekend. I have begun utilizing several professors' office hours, and maybe - just maybe - I'll have a shot at getting into grad school, if I so choose.

All in all, I consider myself a fortunate girl. This semester has been drastically different from my previous college experience, but I like it. Maybe I'm cut out to be productive after all.

a poem

If the world had to be someone,

I think it would be a woman.

Rain like heels on the window pane,

Wind carrying the perfume of blossoms and sapping trees,

Stars twinkling like the glitter on her eyes,

Birds mimicking her sing-song laugh...





Yes -

Earth is a woman, for sure,

And she entertains with seasons.

Orly?

Turns out I'm busy up the wazoo this semester. It feels good, I suppose because I'm finally working in college. Funny how things fall into place when you have a direction.

I'm going to a Kennedy-turned-non wedding this weekend. My parents are picking me up tomorrow afternoon from class (just like in underclassmen high school). I haven't had a chance to get home this semester, so it should be a nice five-hour trip north. Plus, I'll get to see Erin and all the new babies in the family.

Nothing ever came of all my job-searching, so I may go home early and seek holiday employment in Tampa. Probably not at SteinMart, though - of course, I say that now.

Not sure what else to report on. Cheers!

716

It has been quite some time since I've updated this little guy. Turns out I'm really bad at keeping it up to date.

The semester is off to a great start. I like my apartment. This picture is from San Fransisco. Blah, blah, blah.

No wonder I never bother updating - I've got absolutely nothing to say.

Oh, and 716 signifies the number of posts on this blog, including this pathetic one.

(Yes. That's seriously the end of this post.)

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

So here I am, sore from the sun and ridden with excitement over my upcoming adventure in Americaland when suddenly it occurs to me: I'm going to see big things.

Oh, that's not what I meant.

I am going to see many things, all of which I have never seen before. I am traveling to places of which I have never heard, meet people who will fade out of my life like coffee stains, smell things that I never even knew existed until their scent was carried to me on a summer breeze. I will walk on strange ground and sleep on even stranger beds. I will drive under the stars some nights and by my calculations be the only other person alive besides my dozing passenger and companion. I will breathe new air, I will behold new hues, I will wriggle my toes into foreign sands and watch as it gathers in tiny piles on my painted nails. I will feel the heat of the desert, the cold of the mountains; I will watch the sun set on the orange Pacific ocean and wonder if anyone has ever seen it quite like I did.

Nine hours to takeoff. It's going to be one hell of a ride.

And so it goes

I am out of creative ideas for this blog. Instead, I am going to just start doing things on a somewhat daily basis, creating a buildup of short stories and insights that would make for terrific short novel material and then never bother writing about any of it. You dig? Great. Here's a picture.

If I were a rich girl...

I'd buy a bunch of these.

Lucky

Sometimes you feel like you've got the world and you just can't help but want to share it.

We live on front porches and swing life away.

We get by just fine here on minimum wage.

If love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end.

I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand...

Blip

I was in seventh grade Language Arts. We had been asked to write a bellwork composition about the hardest thing we'd ever had to do, a broad topic and I have always been one to think broad thoughts. Nothing came to mind immediately so I considered my life so far.

First came thoughts of volunteer work at the nursing home and how all the smells of old that stuck to you the rest of the day, even if you only went in for an hour or two in the morning and left right after, not lingering a minute more to chat with Mrs. Wren about how old she was and how she wished she was dead or with Mr. Ducatt about the War (just which one I was never sure). That seemed like a bad road to travel down, however; I had gone a representative of St. Tim's - Good old Saint Tim's - trying to get in some brownie points with God or something. Better not offend.

I thought next, naturally, of other religious turmoils. First Communion had turned into some distant and foggy white memory, but I didn't remember it being anything difficult; it had been more of an obligation. By receiving my third sacrament I was choosing to become a Catholic through and through, but when you're seven and come from my family the choice is only a tidy theory. Not to say that I wasn't scared to death of the fire and brimstone for the childish sport I'd made of picking apart frogs caught off-guard by the swimming pool drain, their bellies even more bloated than in life and longing to be poked by me, Doctor Vanessica, a compromise between Vanessa and Jessica. First Communion had been more of a blessing to be regarded with the same passivity as infant baptism and more ceremony than confession, the most frightening of them all. It hadn't been such a big deal to me at the time, but I figured I'd better do it anyways - again, not that it was a choice. Still not a strike for hard times, though.

Hmm. What about that time Great Grama died? That sucked. My sister and I were playing that most dangerous of church games: Who's Gonna Laugh First? As usual, I lost. I got a tearful spanking from my mother before I could run away. Other than that, I didn't remember a thing. Grampa's, too, received the same fate. They had died been close to the same time, maybe even the same year, so I couldn't remember much from either goodbye.

For Pete's sake. What had I been through was difficult to handle? I sure complained enough to write an entire novel on the subject, but here I was, unable to think of something worthy of my mechanical Papermate, the clean wide-ruled sheet staring back at me like it had been for the past five minutes as I tried to think of a tragedy. I was still alive, wasn't I? No one molested me when I was little, my sister generally only got me back for things I started, my parents were at least passably normal...

I had to make something up, and quick. I knew the routine: Mrs. Smith was going to call on me because I was so unchallenged in her class that I managed to effortlessly attain a one hundred and seven percent average, meaning that I would probably have something "nice" to share with everyone else, meaning I always imagined people disliked me for being a "suckup" when in reality sometimes all I wanted to do was fail (a test, not a class; that was far too risky) in order to prove I was at best average. And here I was - no composition and the second hand growing dizzier and dizzier on the yellowing wall clock. How was this happening?

I had to make something up. It had to be believable and immature - something the kid behind me would have written, something shallow and very middle school. A scar? I hadn't a clue from whence most the teeming nicks and scabs decorating my awkward body originated. Stolen bike? Never happened. Mean neighbor girl who told me trolls lived under the house? Made me sound too stupid, even for this apathetic crowd.

A-ha! Sharing my room with my sister last winter break. Nana and Papa had come down for the holiday and I was forced to let her enroach upon my territory while Aunt Rita (living with them as a result of Great Grama's aforementioned death) enjoyed the riches of Erin's Room, she ultimately being the only one sleeping alone in the house the entire week.

It was perfect: it had happened, it was as superficial as I figured most of my classmates' stories would be, and it was... not hard at all. In fact, it had been quite nice. My sister had plucked my eyebrows for the first time while I cursed (Apparently I still didn't know those kinds of words.) and we talked about boys and sex, something of which I still knew next to nothing thanks to my "when a mommy and a daddy want to have a baby reeeeeal bad, they pray for it" parents and my severe illness during Body Parts week at school. It was fun to think I was important to my normally disagreeable teenage sister, even if only because we had to get along to make Mom and Dad look good in front of the family. She even gave my comforter a special scar of lipstick the color of berry stains, just how I never figured out.

Whatever. No one cared. Maybe if I ducked enough behind the midget of a boy in front of me I could be spared just this once...






We donated that comforter this afternoon - bigger beds in rooms the size of change that still lingered with memories of bouncy balls and Lion King soundtrack dances. I wondered where that notebook was and why I didn't decide to study the art of words instead.

I can't say I've been in the writing mood lately

...so I suppose that's why I haven't been doing it.

What I can say is that I am officially half-way through college and I'm not missing any important limbs. I ended the semester on a good note and summer is off to a smooth start, too. Can't say I'm enjoying the heat, but the rain may be something to look forward to.

Butts

Pickles are ruining the entire damn world.

A Summer Song

And when the rain beats against my window pane,
I'll think of summer days again,
And dream of you,
And dream of you.

gaygaygay.jpg

Remember those guys from the PAAS Easter egg dye kits that you never used except to stick in your sister's hair when she wasn't looking? The girl I sat next to on the bus this afternoon was equally as stupid. Let me explain:

Beautiful, sunny afternoon. Jumped on the 9 and got the last seat. Bus takes off, wheels go round, etc, etc, etc.

The girl next to me takes out her phone to call who I can only assume is an equally shallow iPod girl with handbags bigger than an average steering wheel. She starts talking about ohmygosh FINALS! and, like, thu-ree papers I have to turn in by Friday, and that's why last time I made Kev drive when we went home last weekend and I just CRASHED when we got there!!!

So basically it's any old 4 o'clock ride home - until she brings her ass into it. She didn't use my dumb girl voice but if I were to recount this tramatic incident of indecent overhearing to you in person, I'm afraid I would have to use it. I swear this is what Paris said:

"Oh my gosh. I NEEEEEED to start, like, working out and stuff more. Like, you know, like I'm not gonna do the whole eating right thing and stuff, but like the working out I NEED to do. I've really let myself go. I mean, I used to be okay and now I'm, like, I'm CHUBBY!!!"

Okay. Whatever. I can deal with a fat chick. But that wasn't the end of her cry-story:

"Like, yeah. We should work out. Like, not the eating healthy shit, but like go running and stuff. 'Cause, like, I was noticing in my class today how everyone else is gaining weight, too. 'Cause now it's hotter out so, like, people are, like, wearing more, like, REVEALING clothes and we're all a little fatter. Like, winter and stuff and holidays, ya know?"

The topper on the cake wasn't that she was skinny; the only girls bitchy enough to say something like "Everyone's getting SUUUUUUPER fat!" on a crowded RTS bus are always the size of my wrist and have never had to suffer through thighs that - heaven forbid - have touched. No, no. What did it was that this bitch is in MY CLASSES! And we've had that damn assignment all semester, taint-fritter!

So you know what? Chug a Natty Ice. No one's gonna love you no matter how much more weight you lose 'cause you suck and still don't get why they play Postal Service on the UPS commercials.

Now I'm gonna go drink some Tang and watch Even Stevens.

Fun Fact!

Black olives will kill you.

Pollen-breath

Everywhere is the smell of spring and the choking allergies that follow. It's so beautiful that it's almost hard to breathe anyways.

I've finally decided what I want to do with my life. I don't know where to start, but this in itself is a step forward.

And now I'm finally tired enough to fall asleep. And thank heavens for that.

This just in:

I'm bringing sexy back.