Help!

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who started life as a happy, skinny, precocious thing.

But then, as all little girls should, she began to grow.  Somewhere between little and big, she became . . . less skinny.  Chubby.  Fluffy.  Whatever you want to call it.  

At first, she handled change with quiet alarm: surely a body was not meant to have such ridiculous curves and such foolishly soft angles.  Surely all would end well and she would go back to her skinny little self.  

Then came the point of realization that there was no going back.

As a teenager, she was miserable.  She tried to diet to lose weight--to no avail, especially since she enjoyed food too much to have an eating disorder.  She exercised regularly--without success, even though she walked and lifted weights.  The bitter tastes of embarrassment and dissatisfaction blended into a poisonous cocktail that she nursed for years.

However, rather than adjusting and becoming dependent on the poison, she came to hate it.  Somewhere in the middle of feeling like a fat teenage reject, she turned her misery to stubborn pride.  

"I love my body.  Do you see these hips, this butt?  I am a baroque painting.  Our ancestors would have worshipped me, for I am The Birth of Venus."

Now, in case you were wondering, the truth is I am this girl.  This girl is me.  For the last five years, I have taken a ferocious pride in an unfashionably round body, and murdered feelings of inadequacy with the belief that I am perfect.  But now, my pride and staunch belief in well-padded perfection is being unraveled.

I recently became a size eight.

It doesn't sound like much.  It is still a larger number than some would be proud of.  But coming from someone who has been at least a size twelve since the age of twelve, it means much.

It scares me.

I had chosen to be happy, forced the decision for hours and days and weeks and years until my body was good enough to me.  I had finally learned to love the imperfect.

And now it is leaving me.  

Who is this body?  Look at her lean face, count her ribs, marvel at the stiff hollow of her sternum.  Watch as she bruises her slimmed thighs on wheelbarrows.  Laugh when she scrapes her bony hips trying to carry things on them.

I count my ribs.  The bony protrusions of my hips, knees, elbows, and wrists jab their way to the forefront of my mind.  Despite my total hatred of the idea, I have begun to develop a thigh gap.  I put on a bikini, and it really didn't look that bad.

I miss being fat.

Precipice

This face wants to see the world changed.

It is an ordinary sort of face, really, prone to laughing, being overly serious, and sleeping at inopportune intervals.  

Thinking it is somehow unique, it is at present feeling as though something is missing.   

Most of its activities--even productive, essential activities like classwork--have become haunted by the sensation it is doing too much of the wrong things.

In many ways, this is not a content face.  

The things it has are good--but it knows it has too many things.  

This face knows that there are other faces out there that need good food and water, but have no hope of ever receiving aid.

It knows that there has to be some way to change the world, but it doesn't know where to begin.

The mind behind this face is dissatisfied with much of the current order of things, and tries to see how to perhaps fix the system.

It knows it has skill and intelligence, but worries about applying them correctly.

Watching and reading about the world's state of affairs have brought it to realize that concerns are misplaced.

Billions of dollars are spent advertising a handful of presidential candidate faces even as millions of faces are lost each year to treatable diseases.

Child faces vanish by the hundreds because of lack of water.

This face knows that billions of its fellows have slipped away due to carelessness, ignorance, and inactivity.

This face wants to change the world.

It is working out where to begin.

A Sunday

It's been extremely lazy, and I didn't get up to go exercise (as threatened).

Instead, I have been working on homework and paperwork and watching movies.  First was Get Smart, which I like, but not as much as the second.  The clever among you will have taken one glance at the above picture and laughed at me.  Well, laugh away.

Yes, I watched The Last Unicorn.  And yes, at twenty years old, I still love this movie.  The speaking, drunkard skull is still a little freaky* but I love this movie.

I would write a review, but I can't think of anything classy or not reeking of sentimentality to say.


*With his blushingly drunk zygomatic arches.  His anger, and his glowing orbital cavities.

Intervention Needed (?)

Some days, I just feel like this.

Replace the chips with pie and corn dogs, beer with water, and remote with a MacBook Pro,
and you've got it about right.

Now mind you, it's been a while--probably with good reason. This is the first Saturday in forever that I didn't have enough to do to warrant a crazed, hurried day spent dashing about like a decapitated chicken.  I did not clean much, I did no laundry, and I didn't have to make a grocery run.

However, I have taken the last three days off from exercise.  I have eaten somewhere between 4 and 6 corn dogs** and 1/4 of a pie.  Also, I have been excavating said pie from its plate--or cake pan*, I suppose--with a spoon, like the uncivilized college student I am.

That is not my hand holding the spoon: it is a friend's hand.
However, notice that the section of missing pie under the hand is
significantly smaller than the gap on my side of the pie.

That is last night's picture.  As of now I have eaten approximately two-thirds of a poorly set-up, gooey rendition of Momofuku's Crack Pie.***  The worst part of it is that only a small, exercise-driven part of my brain objects this fact.  All the rest brain is lazing about, contentedly swollen with cheap sausage, corn bread, and pie.

Analyzing the pie post-baking, I can think of 3 reasons the pie did not set up properly.
A) It was baked in a 9" cake pan*, whereas the recipe calls for a pie tin.  As it should.  Stupid WalMart.
B) It was not baked long enough, a fact that could not be avoided due to being baked in the wrong container.  Ahem.
C) I did not do a good enough job separating egg white from egg yolk, and it messed up the filling's consistency.

Regardless, it's a freakishly delicious pie, all butter and cream and sugar and GOODNESS I HAVE EATEN SO MANY CALORIES TODAY.

But they were tasty, tasty calories.  :'(

This justification tactic was not required until very recently when I noticed that I was spooning myself pie in a ridiculously style-free outfit while watching a video about scarf-wearing.+  Maybe if I felt less ridiculous, I would be more forgiving.  I don't usually mind being fashionably inept.  But the gap between creator and watchee has rarely been as wide as it has been tonight.

Is sad.

However, I think I have a self-issuable intervention.  Tomorrow morning I will rise with the dawn, go to the local exercise center, and do cardio and lift weights until those long-since digested calories are forgotten in a wave of sweat and misery.  No, wait: not forgotten.  Merited.


But then again, I might just sleep in and do the whole thing all over again.




*WALMART.  WHEN WILL YOU LEARN TO SELL THINGS I NEED FOR MY BAKINGS.^  LIKE DECENT PASTRY BLENDERS.^^
ALSO.
NO PIE PLATES?  SERIOUSLY? ^^^ 
FOR THE LOVE OF MUSHROOMS.^^^^

^I used to sort of like WalMart.  It had all the things I needed to make food--even all the nice little need-to-bake tool bits that other places don't always carry.
The local WalMart has taken that liking and smashed it into tiny, keening, bloody bits that ooze resentment and pure fury.

^^This was actually my first run-in with this Wal-Mart.  A pastry blender is a very useful tool when mixing flour, sugar, salt, baking soda/powder or any combination thereof with butter.  When implemented correctly, the end result is a light, fluffy, evenly buttered mixture that easily adheres together because of the butter--though a little water (in pie dough) or half and half (scones) helps too.  However, not all pastry blenders are created equal.

THIS                                                           THIS.

       DOES NOT 

    EQUAL

I wanted the one on the right.  Did WalMart have one?

OF COURSE NOT.



^^^This is a wrong I only realized after some post-occurrence mulling`.  I mean, seriously!  No pie plates!  Not even the chintzy little glass 8" plates.  NO PIE PLATES.  AAAAAAAAAAAGH.

`Right now.

^^^^The entire point of this footnote was to explain the cake pan bit.  The incompetent WalMart had no pie plates: but it did have two 9" cake pans on sale for $.50 each.  Good deal, right?`

`This fact was enough to soothe my wrath over the pie plate thing until now.   Fifty-cent cake pans are a big deal.

**I honestly can't remember if it was 4 or six corn dogs today alone.  I've been eating them two at a time, but two(?) of the microwave trip(s) are phased together in my head.

*** http://momofukufor2.com/2010/02/momofuku-milk-bar-crack-pie-recipe
I cannot slice my pie, and I have to eat it with a spoon.  I do get the basic idea of what this lady's talking about.  I also hear the gods of healthy eating sobbing with helpless terror.

+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=bKu5UL8DYmg&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_224494&v=5LYAEz777AU
Great, informative video, right?  I didn't feel quite so ridiculous until I was watching its sister video.^  And.^^

^http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_709694&src_vid=5LYAEz777AU&v=ssJdyck8rlY
WHY OF COURSE, MISS I-FELL-OUT-OF-THE-PRETTY-TREE-AND-HIT-EVERY-LEAF-ON-THE-WAY, I WILL LOOK AS FABULOUS AS YOU IN A SCARF.  ALSO, I CAN IN FACT AFFORD A LOUIS VUITTON SCARF.

^^"*hee hee!  I wear this sometimes walking around the city!"
The more I watch this chick, the more I resent her careless flamboyancy.
"Silk will do."
That is making the vast assumption that silk is both affordable and available.
"I got these on sale for $35, I think, or something, but they fit really, really well.  Can I get another?"
Honey.  Sale, as in the great deal kind you're currently thinking, is under the $10 mark.  $35 is a pricy original charge.

Needing/Getting

I've had a lazy-feeling day, with some stress on the side* but nothing I haven't been able to deal with.  Coffee shops fix everything, you know.  A cup of tea, a baked somethingorother**, and you're in perfect repair.

Or at least I am.

This particular location is one of my top picks, coffee shop-wise.  The Blue Moon in Hastings is only slightly superior, but then again this shop has more class and less casual.  It is the 1920's repainted farmhouse where the Blue Moon is the 1990 chic modern.

I don't blog enough any more.  I don't write enough anymore.  I'll start trying again.  But we'll see.  There's so much I think, and I don't get half of it out of my head.  It bangs around and cries and moans and throws hissy fits until I'm grumpy and self-absorbed.

Speaking of not speaking, I still haven't told my mother I put my car in a ditch.  Yes, readers, I have had my first accident-ish.  Ish because, quite honestly, both me and the car are for all apparent reasons fine.  I did take the Doc to the shop for a checkup: I'm headed home tomorrow, and want no problems for that four-hour drive.  But I had no trouble getting him there, which was promising.

I hope.



*My botany professor stopped me, nearly shouting "This is a wet lab.  If you get information from a classmate, it is a dry lab and that is not acceptable" when I tried to leave the lab class on account of a Residential Advisor's meeting.  I wouldn't have minded, except that I'm already having some issues with the RA staff^ and so missing this meeting was not what I wanted to do.  I spent a few minutes on the verge of tears.  But I finished the ever-loving lab.

^I'm a late person.  It really doesn't matter:  I am late to events, my homework is late, my paperwork is late.  Maybe by only a few seconds, but if there's a time limit I'll be on the far side of it.  RA-peoples do not like this, and so I am on probation due to tardiness. I'm working on the situation, but it's not going as easily as I'd like.

**I eat all kinds of somethingorothers.  Scones, muffins, tarts . . . the list goes on.  If there's anything I love about my coffee spot right now^, it's the baked goods.  Today's other was a chocolate croissant.  An oven fresh chocolate croissant.  Oh, yes.^^

^After the drink menu, which is a given.

^^Also worthy of note was the baker of said croissant, who I know and like in a platonic way.  He has very nice curly brown hair.

UPDATE: Doc is fine.  The car-man said so.  :B

Aly bought a classic!  :B

An Editorial(?)--and Icy Complaints

I mentioned an editorial several days ago, and never actually posted it.

I meant to.  So.  Here you go.




In one way or another, college has always been a life-altering force in people's lives.  Students learn a little more about the natural world, the horrors of life (including but not limited to bills and nine to five jobs), and global history.  Inevitably, all this learning also leads to decision-making.  We decide our majors, how we use our time, where we spend our money, and who we hang out with.

At college, we also decide what we do--and do not--believe about God, which I feel is a really big problem.  Why?  Well, a few things.

Most colleges teach such that everything one typically learns is based upon the foundation of scientific learning.  On the one hand, this scientific approach is awesome: it allows psychology to dovetail with cellular biology to dovetail with english, none of which are apparently related.  However, it leaves some huge gaping holes in the learning experience.

Being a science major, I can tell you that the first thing almost every science professor covers at the start of semester is the whole theory-hypothesis-whatnot gig.  Having heard this gig several times, let me assure you that a truly scientific approach is exactly why you cannot base a theological decision on anything you hear in a scientific college.

Science, at its core, is the study of the natural world, meaning it only studies and makes decisions on that which can be tested in a lab as it would happen in nature.  For this reason, science does not touch the supernatural with a ten foot pole to the point that a true scientist will never debate it since he cannot study it.  Students are being taught from a standpoint that declares at its core that God's existence is a moot point because it cannot be tested.  It is not that God does not exist: it is that it should not be discussed or even taken into account.

Furthermore, science takes a 'right until proven wrong' approach to everything.  Even those bits and pieces that are approached as utterly, unshakably true--take the laws of thermodynamics, for example--could be declared wrong if testing showed it as such.  Science is not a stable, unshakable entity that builds upwards eternally: it is volatile, open to change, and constantly being edited.  A prime example would be the current debate in the biology world over whether or not turtles are reptiles.  Various studies of DNA have revealed the fact that turtle genes are extremely different from their reptilian one-time-cohorts.  Many scientists are already accepting of the fact that there needs to be a new, turtles-only taxonomic section, separate from lizards, snakes, and crocodilians.

My point?  Science cannot teach absolute truth.  Nothing in science is ever considered completely, utterly, 100% absolute.  Ideas will be accepted as right until proven wrong, but the moment an exception comes to light, the notion is edited.  Compare this with any kind of religious teaching:  all declare an unchanging set of truths which define the foundation of belief.  These fundamentals are completely at odds with scientific fundamentals, making the two warring entities.

I will not try to make a case for God here: I don't feel that I have the wisdom to attempt that point.  However, I know enough to say--without a doubt--that the typical college is NOT where students should decide about God.  Ask a pastor, minister, priest, monk, or five of each: approach religious leaders of the community and abroad.  Wherever you go, talk to people who at least are open to the idea of His existence.  Better to speak to experts than the opinionated.




I know it's not very good--sorry to make you suffer.  But it's written whole-heartedly, and educatedly: I didn't put anything in I haven't honestly learned.

Science aside, rugby has been in the front of my mind of late.  Why?

6 a.m. Insanity workouts, that's why.

It's a lot easier to think about rugby all the time when every step is a begrudged effort earned only by intense, pain-ignoring effort.  Added to this heap of joy is the nice layer of ice coating the entirety of campus, completely unsalted and ignored.

I end up feeling like I waddle all over the place.  Which sucks, by the way.  Enormously.

However, life goes on, and eventually I'll adjust to the Insanity of it all.  Hopefully, but doubtfully.

Ah, music.

I end up ignoring things a lot.  Little, mostly unimportant things (it would seem) until they rear up and bite, feeling overly neglected. 

Sometimes, I skip out on listening to music.

It's not intentional, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but suddenly I've got this achy quaky sensation and I know it: I haven't listened to enough music lately.  In these moments of desperation, I grab my headphones and either my mp3 player or the nearest computer.

I LOVE Grooveshark.

Don't get me wrong, Pandora has its high points.  But Grooveshark?  Brilliance.  All those songs I hear on Pandora can be refound and memorized via Grooveshark's loving system, which gives it many points over Pandora, who gives you tasty things and then takes them away.*

In other news, I have halfway finished my original knitting project, started way back in March or whenever it was.  It was a while ago.  I now have one knitted fingerless glove, which has taken up residence in my sock drawer for the present.  Eventually, it will have a friend and I will wear them, probably too often.

In still other news, I have sacrificed my soul to Pinterest.  Want creative ideas?  Like the idea of laughing at random pieces of geek-dom?  Don't mind the idea of spending hours at a computer, barely moving?  Then Pinterest is for you!  It eats you, almost as effectively as my organic chemistry book** has eaten me, and leaves you wiggling helplessly in exchange for hours of nonstop awesome. 

And by hours, I do mean hours. 

If you brave the pin boards . . . . have fun.  It's delicious.


I find that I have produced enough randomness for now.  Later, I might write a blog entailing what I intend to write for an editorial in the school paper.  It's pretty stiff stuff, and I'm proud of what it could be.  :) 

But that's for later.



* :(

**Which, in the bidding war for my soul, has unlimited funding.  :'(

Starlight

today is a day where, in mute agony, I wonder at who I am.

who am I?

I wonder. 

where am I going with my life? 

have I remembered what is truly important?


or am I finally lost?



this rarely happens.  usually, I am settled in my skin as I should be, fitted neatly, no pins or new seams required. 

but today,there are gaps in myself.  nothing fits as it should, and I know it.

what makes a person's skin too big?

it is Halloween, and I feel like I've been wearing a mask all year.  I've tried to live openly.

but what if I didn't?

Not The Same

living a busy life, it is easy to forget God some days.

it is easier not to believe in something when you're not looking for it, and some days I forget to look for God. 

sometimes, He is obvious: a clear sky and a crisp breeze whipping around me and chilling my fingertips on my bicycle.

sometimes, it takes a second glance: the perfect details in an autumn leaf.

but sometimes I stop looking.  my eyes are open, but I do not see.

He is still there, just like the breeze and the leaf and the sky, but I cannot see Him.


I think many people can't see God either. 

their eyes are so wide they see nothing, none of the majesty and power of this world around them. 
their minds are so educated they consider nothing, none of the simplicity and magic of the universe.
their hearts are so proud they feel too little to know the true, overwhelming awe looking for God brings.

suppose that, for one day, every person was to stop.

stop doing, stop talking, stop everything.

suppose we stopped, and listened.

suppose we stopped, and thought.

suppose we stopped, and wondered.


after that stop, would we ever be the same?

would the silence change us?

would the stillness seep into us?

or would we rush on, speaking and doing thoughtlessly?


I do not know.


but suppose that we stopped, and looked, and saw God.

would we ever be the same?

The Book I Write

Today's post is not friendly.  If you get squeamish, skip out after the words "gross anatomy lab."  You won't like it.


I hate Wednesdays.  Hate them.  It's as simple as that.  There's too much to do, and I end up feeling rushed and nasty.  Plus, nasty things have a tendency of happening.

Like the test I forgot about until last night.  My suitemate and I are in the same class and when she asked, all casual-like, "So how are you feeling about tomorrow's test?" 

I nearly collapsed.  "What test?" I wanted to ask, until I remembered the professor discussing impending doom on Monday.  Then I wanted to say something along the lines of, "Please, decapitate and cremate me now," but that would have been overly dramatic. 

We laughed mutually at my statement of, "It's gonna happen," and then we both went and studied.  I tried not to have an epic breakdown.

Also looming horribly is next week.  Midterms, y'all.  Freaking midterms.  Which means a test on Organic chemistry, which I hate, and Anatomy, which involves memorizing hundreds of muscles, their attachments, and their movements. 

Oh, yeah.  I'm thrilled.

The one bright spot for the day was the lightbulb-ish bubble I made in glassblowing yesterday.  I was excited to have it turn out nicely, and large-ish, with an appropriately flat bottom and rounded sides and thick-ish bottom and-and-and, so my intent was to take it to my room as soon as possible to contemplate its perfection.

Except all day, it wasn't cooled.  I checked, and went to class, and came back two hours later, and checked, and came back TWO HOURS AFTER THAT and it still wasn't done.  Depressed?

Just maybe.

Added into this cocktail of self-pity was gross anatomy lab.  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, "gross anatomy" means that you dissect the deceased after they've been soaked in fermaldehyde and phenol and other stuff and been de-blooded. 

Now, for those of you who haven't spent a lot of time dissecting things, allow me to enlighten you.  Fermaldehyde, phenol, and the other stuff may be only slightly preferable to the actual smell of rotting flesh.  And if it is, it's a very small slight. 

To add interest, each and every thing that is soaked in fermaldehyde comes out a little differently.  Cat is not the same nasty as squid is not the same as snake is not the same as worm*.  Fermaldehyded human is its own particular brand of nasty.  It only gets beat out by squid, probably because the squids were decaying and suspended in fermaldehyde. 

The worst part of the human variety isn't the actual smell, though.  Rather than simply hanging in the air as such nasty odors usually tend to do, it does something infinitely more nasty.

It sticks.

You know how sometimes, after sitting down under a blanket, you move and a little gust of air runs past your nose? 

Imagine my surprise when, at such a moment, the gust that ran past smelled just like the lab. 

Imagine my horror when I realized the reek was coming from my clothes and my hair and my skin and . . . everything. 

After my shower, I brushed my teeth and tried to scrub my nose because--guess what?--it was stuck in my nose and mouth, too. 

I have never been so thoroughly disturbed by a smell.  It was horrid.

Thus, I hate Wednesdays.



*Believe it or not, the squid was the worst.

Discombobulate

It has ended up being one of those days in which I am completely, utterly, inexplicably exhausted.  It just doesn't make sense.* 

To complicate things, it has not been a nice day** in many ways.  I have been scrambling, trying to find something good about said day*** and it keeps getting harder. 

So there I was, drifting down the street on my bicycle after organic chemistry#, feeling decidedly melancholy when the sheer niceness of a breeze in my face got the better of me.  I stopped worrying about all the nastiness and thought about other things.

Life is a lot like drifting down the street on a bicycle. 

Sometimes, the best way to deal with all the little stresses is to let them go.##

It is important to be a bowl rather than a bottle so that, when dealing with bad things, they overflow rather than age.


And with these sort of thoughts, the day gets better. 

I thank God for little breezes, which are capable of fixing many things. 



*I got to bed at normal time, slept like a log, and did not awaken before my alarm.  However, I woke up and it's been downhill from there.

**The paperweight I was going to grind for a grade cracked. 
The paperweight I made because the aforementioned paperweight cracked also cracked. 
I missed 3 of 5 questions on my morning quiz. 
I made myself look dumb in anatomy. 
I nearly fell asleep (thus, looking dumb) in organic chem.
And it's not even 2:30 yet.

***This is important--nay, imperative--because if I find something nice, I will not have an epic bawl-fest issue breakdown.

#Most of the way from the Math & Science building to my dorm is downhill.  This means minimal pedaling.^

^Which means I practice riding one-handed in the hopes someday I might be able to ride without holding the handlebars. 

##Somehow, this brought to me a mental image of sparrows swirling about, as sparrows are wont to do at times.
I like sparrows.  :3


See?
Es cute.
:3



Black Sheep

The abilities of the internet usually manage to surprise me*.  Needless to say, I was glad to discover that there are lots of page views on days that I post. 

People read my blog. 

:3


In other news, I'm working on added colored bits to my clear glass in glassblowing, which has been awesome except for when it's been really hard.  Really hard, as in, each of my first three attempts has somehow or other managed to fail epically. 

All three of them.**

The first^ wasn't cool enough when I went to gather more glass and mostly ran onto the floor during my desperate speed-walk to the bench; there wasn't time before class to turn it into a paperweight.  The second^^ cracked from cooling too quickly while I was helping another person with kiln doors and such because his paperweight was overly large***.  I overheated the third^^^ right before I finished it and it fell off in the drip pan at the end of the bench with a shattery-sounding sort of splat. 

And the project is due Friday#. 

Hopefully, all ends well.


More important than bemoaning the current disaster of glass class is to announce that I have returned from a trip enlightened and impassioned, which is always a good thing.  Especially when it will help my study practices.

I am part of an excellent scholarship program supporting the training of medical personnel, and as part of this program I went on a trip to a nearby-ish medical school## that graduates from the program attend.

I loved it. 

The school is in an actual city###--with bookstores and nice restaurants and more than one stoplight--and did anyone ever mention that med school is amazing?  Yes, they try to destroy you with more information in one day than I sometimes see in a week.

And yes, I just shrugged this off as lightly as I would a coat.

This entire process of earning a Bachelor's is littered with nasty little inconsequential things I don't want to think about anyway.  Humanities?  Bah.  Physical activity classes?  Pullox.  Introduction to communication?  Humbug. 

Discussing seeing patients and spending two hours in a gross anatomy lab> and contemplating the white coats>> made driving back to my little state college awful. 

I didn't want to leave.

So, despite hating chemistry with an all-consuming passion, I have returned renewed.  I will get into med school.  I will finish in this program.  And I will be a doctor.

Bwaha.  :)



*It learns stuff while I'm busy studying and working.  I come back and it jumps up and down and says, "See!  I do new things now, and some old things better!  :D" 
No need to mock me, I just don't pay as much attention to the web as would be nice.

**  D'B

^blue bits

^^black-and-white bits in a dot pattern

^^^red and white bits

***No good deed goes unpunished.  I never believed this before in my life.

#This wouldn't be such an issue except the thing needs 24 hours to cool and at least 15 minutes on the grinding wheel which means I have to make an excellent one+ tomorrow between my make-up test, and class, and rugby.  Ugh.

+At least one.  More than that would be nice, though, too.  :(

##Nearby-ish = 9 hours on a bus each way.  Xl

###My definition of 'city' here is slightly different than the usual interpretation: the location in question has a population a little greater than 400 thousand.  Which is small, I know.

>Gross = large amounts.  As in, cadavers.  The smell is . . . special, let me tell you.

>>Those students who are not full-fledged MDs yet have shorter coats than the doctors.  They still looked professional.+

+The idea of being professionally dressed every day excites me.  I have too many unworn classy clothes.  :3

Still Alive

Is there any way of knowing exactly what one is capable of?  We know best what we can do when the buiding is crashing down, the bear charging, the end too near. 

We live holding back--yes, it's true.  The human body never completely expells all its air.  One third of a person's lungs is never emptied as a precaution for the event that there would be no filling it at the next breath.*

We live in wait of a moment that may never come.

But how do we push past this containment?  How do we arrive at a place where everything is all out, all or nothing?  How do we live in such a manner?

It is foolish to be always waiting in terror of what may never come.  And it is even more foolish to live in terror of what is guaranteed to come.

I do not think that life without morals is a good thing: indeed, quite the opposite.  We do ourselves more favors by walking the line, keeping to the rules.

But what good does it do to simply hold this glass we have been given, be it half empty or full?

Ride motorcycles in spite of the risk factor: it's freeing.**

Make frienships, even though friends (especially the close ones) will cause hurts: it's a good way to learn empathy and feel happiness.***

Attempt the things that you look at and say, "I would like to try that."  Why?  Because those are the things that make life brighter.+

Live adventurously.  Not stupidly, as they are different things and stupidity could get you killed.  But adventurously.


*I learned this in my high school choir class.  And who says you never learn anything in high school?^

^ . . . . Yes, I have said this.  Don't mock me. 

**This is true, very true.  Motorcycles are delicious: like riding a horse only faster.  :)

***This is true of falling in love, too.  Your beloved will hurt you, despite what the world thinks^, and you will have to learn forgiveness or join the growing divorce rate. 

^The world is wrong about love for many reasons. Love is not an emotion: it is acted out through wishing the best for someone else.  Furthermore, it is wrong about how it happens. Falling in love rarely happens gracefully.  It's less like a supermodel on the runway and more like said supermodel on black ice.# 

#There will be snags, slips, and many nigh breaks, but hopefully it all comes out all right.

+I, your humble nerdy blogger friend, am currently playing rugby^ and taking glass-blowing^^ in the spirit of this idea. 

^They call this the gentleman's game, which quite honestly doesn't make sense to me yet.  Clawing a downed person with cleats and ball-snatching are quite acceptable, so you might understand my confusion.

^^This is one of the more delightful things I have ever done.  The glass comes out of the kiln like honey, except unlike honey it stiffens up into great glorious things# that can be kept indefinitely.

#I am not yet making great glorious things.  I am making paperweights, which are the training grid to making great glorious things.  Despite their ingloriousness, they are fun and exciting.

Going Missing

Well . . . I'm back. 

I have returned to the world of college: limitless internet, crazy business, psychotic people.  It would be better if my laptop were not in the shop, my financial aid were already all in order, and my entire body did not ache from the rebound of rugby practice*.  But I am here.  And I intend to enjoy myself.

And . . . well . . . that's all I really know right now.  I didn't pick a topic for this, didn't really decide what I was going to be writing about before I sat down.  Didn't plan out much witty cynicism. 

That being said, I'm back.  I'm brunette.  And I really, really can't walk in 4-inch high heels**.



*Yes, I joined the rugby team.  I intended to last year and didn't get there, so I did this year.  I'm liking it, but part of me (namely my calves, hamstrings and abdominal muscles) is telling me that I am a psychotic retard who needs to give up and go back to knitting+. 

+Is it pathetic that my morning routine consists of getting up, getting dressed, starting coffee, and stretching?

**Yes, I own a pair of these nowadays.  Remember the part where I mentioned sore calves?  Yeah . . . walking in heels this high is hard enough (for me) without my legs screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" every time I try to take a step.  It was worth it, though.  I think.

Surrender

So, between moving home and being internet-less and hanging out with yet another awesome friend set, I has not blog-ed.  I'm thinking of trying to write more/another short story . . . also, perhaps seeing if I can hawk my first attempt for monies of some amount.  We'll see.  For now, just know that I still have this blog and still love it, and do not intend to completely abandon the project.

Good luck to the other bloggers!!!

Truffles and Quail

I literally have a pet peeve.

And before you say, "I do, too, so don't think you're special," considering the following image.

First of all, let me say that the cover artists never did Tanith Lee's work justice*, but anyway . . .
see the brown fluffy creature-thing in the very bottom right hand corner?  Looks something like a cat, but fox-ish at the same time?

It's a peeve.  A pet peeve.  And while mine is white (standard issue is brown), it's a pretty good match.  I think.

Cute and fluffy is great until she's shed all over your jeans. And shirt. And hands.
And then you realize you're gagging on fine, white hairs that somehow invaded your mouth.

Which means I have a pet peeve that irritates a pet peeve daily.

She sheds.  Everywhere.  Even with the help of a lint brush and packing tape, you cannot escape.  Vacuuming beats back the plague for only a few minutes.**

 I've always felt that if the house or person is hairy because of the pet(s), there shouldn't be pets because people are obviously too lazy to clean up.  But this is no longer just a pet peeve.  This is a whole new level of desperation.  I do clean.  I do fight the hair, desperately and maybe a little bit madly.

  It just never stops coming.

This almost makes up for it, though.

She snores and sleeps in human-ish positions on her peachy-colored couch's-shoulder-rest-perch, which are endearing behaviorisms.  Also, she sometimes likes it when you rub her tummy.  :3

I have other pet peeves--probably more earnest ones--but this one has taken over my brain for the time being.  DB


*This is also a pet peeve of mine, I must confess.  Inaccurate cover art drives me up a tree.  It's not fair to the author because you have incorrect expectations, it's deceiving, and it does nothing for anyone, including the artist.  Bad cover art is almost worse, because it compounds all previously discussed effects and it looks awful.  Some cover art is okay at first glance, and then you look at it and it oozes poor computer graphics-program skills.  There should be jacket art quality-checkers.  Or authors should be pickier about the cover art.  SOMETHING!!!

**I realized this when I finished the rug (and surrounding wood floor), sighed in contentment, and looked up to see floating hair.  I screamed in utter desperation.

Back Again

Sins of fathers past;
darkness and wrongs that last.
It frightens me
and is shameful to see
eternities before the mast.
As a child 
all was mild
but more I find
I cannot be blind.
All seems defiled.


I am going to write this even though it burns my pride for cheap tinder.  Forgive me.

I blame no one, though it would be easy to point fingers.  Even the whole "sins of the father" gig is shit: people tend to be lazy and avoid conscientious change, which is necessary if one means to be anything different from his or her family.

Besides, this is not some morbid banner passed down to me, though some of my family has carried it.

In some ways, I've weakened over the years.  Once upon a time, there were many things that were not going to be.  It was as simple as light and dark.  I was going to close my eyes to the existence of things, ignore them, not take part if I chose it as such.  With all the authority and conviction within me, I said I will never partake.  It was calm, it was still, and it was convinced.  It held the harrowing power of anger, the desperation of mourning, the sparkling pride of joy.

I believed it.

Ah, the simplicity of ignorance.

As I've grown, it is not so simple.  I don't know when it started, but it is there.  It happened a moment ago; it might happen again tomorrow, or the next day.  The twitch.

This is why cigarettes frighten me.

I do not smoke.  I do not like smoke.  It burns my nose, gums into my hair, sits on my tongue, digs into my eyes and my clothes and tries to stay there.  I hate smoke.

But there are times, when I am sitting still and thoughtful and somewhat stressed, that the twitch comes.  Sometimes it is a gossamer thread of thought that kisses my eyelids and trails through my hair to vanish regretfully.  Sometimes it is stronger, and I nearly reach out for it as naturally as a breath.

There are times I want a cigarette.

This is absolutely horrifying.  I can't explain the urge.  But it is there, and it can be strong as the desperate need to breathe after a long musical phrase.

And I hate it.


There is no happy ending for this.  I have no jokes to crack, no cheerful whimsies to offer.  All I can say is I thank God for what self-control he's granted me, and that there's enough to keep me out of my car when these sensations come calling.

Saturdays--and Sundays too, I suppose

two s's tangling together
to make a tremulous 
trigger of 
trips and
thoughts and
toe-wrigglingly sweet times . . . but
there are times we recall
they are only two 
struggling to win 
things already lost, and we
try not to lose
the imaginary magic of
two s's 

There was a time in my high school years that the weekend was a dull, dreary excuse to be only slightly less miserable than the rest of the week.  Thankfully, my college years have begun to alleviate that horribly pessimistic vision of the beast.

Music, driving, laughing with family and friends, seeing new sights.  A weekend is a chance to be someone else, something different.

take the time
to travel the 
tricksy track that 
takes treasured time 
tactlessly 
on every other day.


I love driving.  Sitting behind the steering wheel all the time has added a new dimension to trips as a whole.  Weekends home this semester have become adventures.

Perhaps the most fun I've had on the road is hunting for historical markers.  When in Nebraska and off the interstate* you're bound to see smallish square blue signs depicting white oxen pulling a covered wagon, sometimes with a distance or arrow denoting an approximate location.  These signs foretell historical markers*.

Some of the markers themselves are obvious, like the ones parked in plain sight all along Highway 2.  These can be difficult: unless one is constantly on the alert for the predicting signs, you'll zoom past them doing 65 without a second thought.

Slamming on one's brakes at approximately 65 mph is interesting, by the way.  I don't advise doing it with an unprepared passenger.  It provided me with a decent photo of the following marker, though.***

You can't read this on my phone, so I'm glad the bigger version is legible!  :D

The truly delightful thing about this marker--and any other marker sitting immediately next to a highway--is you can prove it actually exists.  

This is where historical-marker-hunting gets interesting.

Remember the historical signs with directional arrows attached to them?

SOME OF THE ARROWS ARE LYING.

I had driven down miles of awful, rutted gravel in search of a marker before I hit a three-way split in the road (two of them having cattle guards) and realized this could not be the right way.  I drove slowly back into town, I stared down both sides of every street and crawled down the highway back out into the country . . . 

The marker did not exist.  

I trusted another such arrow, and gave up as soon as I saw the twisty, dirty path of doom.  Seriously!  The arrow DIDN'T EVEN POINT TO AN ACTUAL ROAD.  

These misadventures aside, I felt like my weekend jaunts down Nebraska's Highway 2 (and subsequent searches for historical markers) were grand old times.  

If you ever decide to go hunting for the markers . . . . good luck.  You'll want it. 

*These are the same thing, by the way: the interstate view of this state doesn't count as Nebraska.  The little towns with a church, an abandoned school, and a gas station are the authentic Nebraska.  Any town with a population over 10,000 is faking it, and does not count.  We need the frauds, though: I would not be happy without the delightful bookstores false Nebraskan towns can offer.

**If one was being horrifically blunt, each and every maker could say, "Once upon a time ago, there was a town here, but then it was considered more affordable and fashionable to live elsewhere and the town died."  This is the true story of Nebraska as a whole, and I'm certain that someday, there will be dozens more markers like Hecla's.
It makes me sad.

***'Decent' is the best any photo of mine will ever do.  First off, for the foreseeable future, any and all images I post will be taken with a cell phone.  I have no digital camera.  Secondly, I am not a photographer.  I like taking photos very much, but I have very little practice in it as an art form.

Rain

deeper beneath
higher above
stretch
toward core
toward wind
reach
breathe air
taste dust
grow
living
life-giving
be


I love rainstorms.  They make for quiet, lazy-feeling days . . . but at the same time, I always feel richly alive.  It's like if I breathed deeply enough of a rainstorm, I would be able to unfurl into something more at home in wind and weather.  This sensation makes me feel very friendly towards trees, and grass, and even the weedy dandelions.  People grumble and tuck themselves away over the wet . . . green things get excited and shoot upwards.