oy.

sometimes I get so overwhelmed with love for people -- even (& sometimes especially) strangers -- that I feel like my heart could just burst without warning.

antsy.

I'm struggling with a lot of arguments on all sides of everything (literally everything. not just politics. promise.) lately, & my inability to articulate my own thoughts on it all is making me antsy.

All I've really managed to do is acquire a desperate, grasping hope that I've somehow not yet succumbed to doing the very things that make me cringe.

Thing that make you go "hm."

Word.

busy-ness & getting old.

It's been a while, & it's late, so this post won't be that great (except that it just rhymed. that's pretty fantastic). At this very moment in time, I only have one thing to really address here, & that is the fact that for my 24th birthday, I received, among other things, Ninja Turtles wall decals. Who am I?

I'll write more soon. But that was my philosophical dilemma at 2:30 in the morning that I just had to share with you. :)

sweet words

So I started reading this blog over a year ago. Somewhere along the line, I started reading her husband's blog (they're both on the same site, so either use the links I've given, or click between "he said" & "she said"), & I haven't once been left bored after reading. This time, though, I all but cried.

They're about to have their second child, a boy, & this post nearly ruined me. It's stunning.

If you read little else of beauty in your life today, you should at least read that one post.

oh what a day.

Yesterday was decidedly one of the stranger days I've had.

I have a full week off of both my new job (which I really should talk about at some point) and grad school, which is glorious, but I'd so settled into an ultra-busy rhythm already that it feels weird. Anyway, I woke up at 6:30 -- far too early for a Monday off -- on my friend's bedroom floor. Her room is across the hall, & we had been watching a movie the night before, & apparently that was too much for me & I fell asleep. So I dragged myself up & across the hall to my room, where I decided that the smart thing to do would be to get started on my paper that was due in my professor's inbox in 11 hours. So I did. Sort of.

I started by checking my email, because isn't that a necessary thing to do before writing a paper? Then, of course, there was facebook. I must be growing up, though, because I was only on for a few minutes. Honest. I was so proud. My second email account was where I got caught up. A dear friend of mine with whom I lived in London for that semester so long ago had sent a freshly-written play to all of us (her fellow Londoners) in which she reminisced beautifully about the life-changing time we spent in that beautiful, grimy, overflowing city. I can't even begin to explain to you what that semester meant to all of us as perfectly and gracefully as she did, but suffice it to say that after reading it, my mind was utterly lost to reminiscence, & my heart ached happily under the weight of all of those fading memories. There is so much that goes into what I remember about who I was in London in the Spring of 2006, but that's for another time.

I tore myself away from the London in my mind to finish the assignment at hand. After sifting through the jumble of art & music & history & beauty for however long I'd let my mind wander, there was something even more unattractive about writing an artless, dull paper on five research studies that had themselves been poorly-done to begin with. At moments like that, when something one loves is so plainly and painfully juxtaposed next to something so lifeless, the outcome is never good for the currently lifeless thing. I could feel my thoughts spiraling into an minor existential crisis that I could not afford to be in with a paper, lifeless or otherwise, due in just hours, so I barreled on.

Then came the rain. Or so it felt. I was wading through a long list of very unhelpful resources, trying to figure out an APA citation (see? lifeless.) for at least a half-hour. Then I received a text that my grandpa, who went into the hospital on Thursday for one thing & was kept there on Saturday for a completely different thing, was not exactly doing better. The text wasn't quite as grave as it might have been, but when you love someone as much as we all love Pappy, any less-than-ideal news is, well, terrifying. Following that text was another from my mom, only this time she was asking me if I could watch my baby sister (who had of course been sick since Sunday. why not?) because there was another health concern with another person &...

The day more or less went on like this. Texts & emails & calls that just added to the stress. I did find out that my new apartment will be ready for me to move in on Friday, but in the midst of a day like yesterday, that was bad news, because OHMYLORD, I HAVEN'T PACKED & I HAVE NO FOOD & WHAT ABOUT THAT ALARM I NEED TO BUY SO NO SCARY PEOPLE CAN COME IN AT NIGHT WITHOUT ME KNOWING.

Really, I'm amazed that the paper ever got finished. But it did. I clicked send at 5:29 & sat back with a long sigh. Life's like this sometimes, I guess, but I don't think you ever grow accustomed to it. Not completely.

My apologies for the long, overly-ponderous post. It's really quite okay if you don't read it all the way through or if you don't read it at all. I'm willing to bet, though, that you've all had plenty of strange days like these. Their usefulness lies in their incredible ability to remind us of who & where we are, like it or not. And we really should choose to like it rather than not, because who & where we are, regardless of how it may look, is a necessary part of the who & where we will someday be. Which is, I think, a beautiful thing.

the serial killer next door

This will be a short post. It's bed time, & what I have to say won't take long. All I really came here to tell you, internet, was this:

I've just started apartment hunting. In fact, my first one was on Monday. You know what I found out after my appointment with the landlady? That Arthur Shawcross used to live there. The kicker is not only did he live there, but that was the last place he lived before his final arrest. That was WHERE HE LIVED WHEN HE KILLED HIS LAST TWELVE WOMEN (shudder).

So, about the apartment I'm going to visit tomorrow...

pickled eyes

A couple nights ago, Mattea (my 17-year-old sister) & I were tucking Zoe (our 7-year-old sister) in bed for the night. While I picked out her bedtime story from the MILLIONS okay, not quite millions, but really close of books on Zoe's shelf, Mattea drew a picture for her on her easel. The picture started with a pretty fabulous-looking tree, and then she decided to draw Zoe standing under the tree. As a cute little cartoon version of Zoe materialized on the white board, this is what I heard:

Mattea: "...here's your hair...your dress... your big-old-eyes..."
Zoe: "HEY!! I don't have pickled eyes!!!"

Oh, to be 7. It was a perfect moment with my little sisters.

gratefulness

I have so much to be so grateful for right now, but of course I've been nothing but miserable (at least inwardly miserable) for days. It's just so hard to see outside myself sometimes, & as selfish as that makes me sound, it's so true. So to snap myself out of this ridiculous, stress-induced funk, I've decided to make a list of things (typical & not-so) that I'm grateful for (just a tad bit late for Thanksgiving, I realize):

-my huge, confusing, beautiful family.
-my friends. everywhere. houghton, naz, & scattered in various places across the globe. I wish I could gather you all in one place sometime. I'm positive you'd all love each other.
-the bird singing outside my window at this very moment, reminding me that spring is somewhere in our future.
-beauty. there's so much of it in this world that it overwhelms me. constantly.
-the fact that it's solely my prerogative whether I choose to capitalize sentences or not.
-words, music, & art. without these, life would be so plain. I'd also be a lot less geeky, which would be kind of boring.
-my two new jobs, neither of which have started yet (which gives me a solid week & a half to get my act together).
-grad school. it's one of the hardest things I've ever loved.
-my lovely man (have I mentioned that this list is not at all in order of importance?). luke is at the tippy-top of my friend list, but he really deserves a number all to himself. he's my very best friend, & I can't even begin to explain how happy I am to have him in my life.
-of course, jesus. I really & truly cannot conceive of a life without faith. oh, I'm sure it can be done. it's just that I don't want to try it. & while I'm on the subject, boy, has my faith ever changed in my (almost) 24 years on this earth. if I could go back, I certainly wouldn't change anything, but I'm very glad to be just exactly where I am.
-& if I'm being really honest, I have to include myself in here somewhere. when no one else is around, it's just me, god, & the dust bunnies. I'm learning to enjoy that quiet space.

Jack Kerouac, who happens to be one of my favorites (haters: don't even get me started.), includes this in his Belief and Technique for Modern Prose:

"Be in love with your life"

I intend to.

the easiest test I'll ever pass

This morning, I had to come out early to Rochester for my drug test for Mary Cariola. I definitely have no cause to be nervous, but I also wasn't exactly excited by the thought of having hair clipped from several places on my head to be tested in a lab. It's kind of just weird.

The place was really nice. I walked in & there wasn't a soul in the waiting room, which is always a good sign. I filled out my paperwork, sat there awkwardly for a few minutes, and finally my name was called. I was about 5 feet from the door when the woman, who looked far too posh to be stuffed in a doctor's office said, "Oh my gosh, look how cute you are!"

Let me tell you, internet, I was expecting to lose hair; I was expecting to sign papers. Having someone fawn over my good-smelling hair, my "cute personality," and my "ADORABLE OUTFIT," and lamenting over the lack of engagement ring on my finger (hey, she asked) was so not what I expected. It almost kind of makes me want to go back for another drug test the next time I'm needing a little self-esteem boost. Do they allow purposeless drug tests?

As I left her office, she called after me, "baby doll, you call me up when you get that ring!"

She was just so sweet, I kind of actually want to.

a jungian field day

Okay folks, this dreaming business is getting out of control.

In the last three nights, I've had three terrible dreams. About three people whom I love dearly who don't just hate me in Dream World, they want me to either be killed violently or to live miserably. Uplifting, right?

I won't name names just because that could get awkward, but so far, this is what I've been up against:

1) The first night, I was being chased and psychologically tortured, and finally, I ended up locking myself in a little room in a basement while Maniac Dream Person was scratching crazily and blood-thirstily at the door so he could get in and kill me. No, tear me to shreds. Then I woke up.

2) The second night, the person just plain hated me. She said horrible things to me, about me, and looked at me with more contempt in her eyes than I've ever seen in real life. The worst part was that in my dream, I was well aware of the fact that we had been dear friends at one point, so it made the sadness (& creepiness) of it all so much more painful. (Maniac Dream Person #2 actually knows that I had this dream, and she is not the least bit evil in real life, nor does she hate me. Although after that dream, I won't say I didn't need a little reassuring.)

3) The third night was another one that didn't want me dead but wanted me very, very unhappy. This one is harder to explain properly without giving away the real-life person, but I'll just say this: this person knew that if she replaced me with a certain other person, it would destroy my world. In too many ways to count. So she did it, and she looked like she actually enjoyed the resulting pain.

Had these dreams all come after I watched Black Swan last night, I might just brush them off as after-shocks from a psychologically-draining (not to mention INSANE) movie. The problem with that is they started before the movie, so now I can't blame them on the movie. The other problem is that I know I can be insecure, but BROTHER, this is just ridiculous. Is my subconscious trying to tell me something? Gracious.