#smallcourage

Hello!

I swear I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Seriously.

But what I have started doing is #100HappyDays over on Instagram. (I can be found here, and really, let's not talk about how unimaginative I am about creating screen names, though there is something to be said for being able to found across multiple platforms with relative ease.)

One of my favorite hashtags on Instagram is #smallcourage. And it's something I figured out last summer, after having surgery.

Being told you have to be cracked open like a walnut and patched up like a popped tire is terrifying no matter what age, but it's a special kind of horror when you're only twenty-three and feel like either the road will go ever on or you won't see another step of it. Signing all the papers and giving the doctors free reign to do what they need to is big courage. It's bravery on a whole new level (I'll write you a dissertation on the subject if you disagree with me, trust me, I can).

Small courage is different. It's the idea that, despite how much it hurts or how much you don't think it's going to be okay, you get out of bed each new day. It's how you say today will be different. It's how your sternum feels like it's healing together again and you have a few odd beats more in one day than you usually do, and yet you keep going. Small courage is the courage it takes to just keep on keeping on, day after day, even when it seems like the last thing you absolutely want to do. It's sending out one more query letter after five rejections. It's finding a way to go to NYC for a weekend even after your boss tells you no, you don't have any time off to use to take a Friday.

It's stepping onto an indoor soccer field 2.5 years after your last college intramural game, little over a year out of major traumatic surgery, and trying to find your footing again. It's knowing that it might not go like you want it to go, but damn it, you're going to try anyway.

Big courage decisions come every so often. Small courage comes on a daily basis, and it reminds us all that we are very brave, very courageous people deep inside. And that is something none of us should ever forget.

Have a lovely Tuesday.

Little Steps

This isn't what you think it is. Trust me.

This past weekend was, for many colleges and universities, graduation. Which, aside from the fact that it made me realize I've been a year since my own trip across the proverbial stage to get my BA, is a time for new graduates to just bask in their potential. And there's a lot of potential in almost all of those pictures currently flooding my Facebook feed of caps, gowns, and shiny new diplomas.

I'd like to know when I got quite as cynical as I have because my response - and congratulatory status update - included mention of getting slapped in the face by reality.

Because it is coming. Whether you, as a new graduate, want to believe it or not, it is coming.

Unless you're one of the few that have been hired back by the place you did your unpaid internship at, it's a tough as shit job market out there. I have a degree in chemistry, and it took me roughly a year and a half to get a job. My friend, who's a teacher at an all girls Catholic high school in Rochester, took about year after her masters degree to find a position. My other friend is currently still jobless, and she's been out two years.

Nobody is going to hand you a job when you hand them a resume with your credentials on it. You have to apply. You have to get rejected. You quite possibly have to go all the way to Chicago, IL, take two civil service exams, and then come all the way back home to realize, yeah, that might not happen either though you're more than qualified.

It sucks, it really does. It feels like a never-ending uphill battle. In some cases, it really is. But you have to keep trying. Even getting a first interview is a big step. But it's also a little step. And the important thing to remember is that what you might end up doing is not something you would have dreamed you'd do in the first place.

Case in point: I never thought I would work with hot mix asphalt cement for the same employer my father has worked at for thirty years. (Does this mean my father was the one to get me my current job? No. He suggested I put in an application, and he sent it in for me, but the rest of it was my doing. We also do very different things for the same company.)

But it's a job. I enjoy going to work every afternoon (hooray for second shift! Seriously, I love it.) and I find it interesting. Did I also swear to myself as an undergrad that I wouldn't ever work in a lab? Yeah, I did. I also swore I'd never willingly look through scientific literature articles and materials post-graduation, and hey, I do that on a regular basis, too. With excitement.

Times change. Situations change. And you, yourself, will need to be a little flexible at first. It's not going to be perfect, but it's going to be something. You just have to keep trying, and take it one little step at a time.

Something to Be Thankful For

Last week was Thanksgiving. We had, as per usual, a boatload of people in the house. We also had a boatload of people staying in our hours for the week, too. My aunt and uncle from Maine, my two cousins and their dog from South Carolina, stayed at our bed and breakfast (what we jokingly call our house in the summer because it's like a permanently revolving door twenty-four hours a day with who is getting up for work, leaving for work, and coming home from work...but that's a different story for another time) and we had something like sixteen or seventeen people for dinner Thursday.

I had to work. It was an utter madhouse at the hotel: we did 685 for our buffet dinner, ran out of turkey, and had fun with each other so we didn't go absolutely batshit crazy. Well, we went batshit crazy anyway, but the highlight of having to work on a day when we were supposed to be with our families - which people continually thanked us for - was sitting down at the end after all the customers had left and the dishes had been taken back to the kitchen, and having our own sort of family dinner from the left overs. We were all tired and punchy and it was one of those things that I'll hang onto for a long time.

What I'll also hang onto is that a week ago Monday was my twenty-fourth birthday. With all that happened this year - and it's been a rough year - I honestly, at some points, didn't think I would see it. But I did. And to be able to celebrate it, and look forward to another year patched up and ready to take on the world is something that will make this birthday the most special that I will ever have. I will always remember this one. Not because of the food or the presents, but simply because I am still alive.

My family, the jokers they are, have hinted they're going to get me a cow tag - like you can buy at Tractor Supply - with the number 23 on it. I have to say I really like this idea, and I'm hoping to find it in my stocking on Christmas morning. And if anybody asks me about it, well, I have a story that's stranger than fiction. But they say the truth usually is.

Hope you all had a happy holiday, and oh, hey, it's December. When the hell did that happen?

The End of the Road

I took my last college final last night beginning at seven. It wasn't an utter train wreck, but it was damn close, but it was okay. My headphones were in, at one point I was swearing profusely in my own head, and all I could think about afterward, walking through the parking lot to find my car and looking up at the clear sky was how good it felt to be done. How good it felt to accomplish this monumental thing. To come back from the semester from hell, take two repeater courses, and come out on the other end with something....worth it.

Today I packed up my little apartment that I have become quite fond of and headed for home after having met the requirements for a BA in chemistry with a minor in theater.

It has been a long, long road. One that has led me through numerous trials here on this side of the Atlantic, and four fantastic months in a foreign country. It led me through the semester from hell a year ago. It led me through more than just academic hell, too, but seriously, what doesn't kill you in some sense really does make you stronger. Which is damn difficult to realize when you're in the middle of it. Horrendously difficult.

But here, at the end...it really has been worth it.

Rust Bucket

My legs hurt, but I feel better than I have in a long time. I'm going to need to spend time - preferably while I read a hundred and something pages of Lear tonight - with my legs upright against a wall to drain the lactic acid from slightly abused muscles. My ass hurts. I've drank more water in the past two hours than I have all day.

I blame - and thank - all of this on my pal, Rust Bucket.

Let me back up before you guys think I'm more nutzo than normal. Remember all those commercials New Balance put out about people getting back together with running? How it shouldn't be difficult to have a relationship with running, and that getting it back is a good thing? Well, I don't have a relationship with running. I have one with Rust Bucket.

Rust Bucket is my bicycle, appropriately named because the thing is a bit old. I mean a good ten or eleven years, and we got him fairly new - maybe a year or two old - at a yard sale one summer when I was in middle school. So RB has been with me a while and of course made the move to college. He's a sturdy little shit, despite the startling amount of iron oxide (rust) on him, and he and I have gone on many an adventure, both here at college and at home.

RB and I haven't gone for a ride in the past four months. It's been the middle of winter; the tires needed some air (and actually wound up getting replaced yesterday), but none of that seemed to matter because rather than doing this damn formal lab report on Co(III) complexes, we took advantage of the nice weather and went for a 7.8 mile ride.

Yeah. My lower body is going to hate me in the morning.

For as much pain as rolling out of bed is going to be tomorrow, it was worth it. Really worth it. It feels really good to have gone for a ride.

Though maybe next time we'll start a little smaller.

Two Sweet, Two Fabulous Two Years

I'm currently sitting on my bed - finished watching Cutting Edge: Going for Gold - and I realized that April was the first month I started blogging in two years ago. A little detective work (because there are some dates I just can't remember) and, turns out, I almost missed it.

Today is my two year blogiversary.

It's been two years since I started blogging about life, college, and everything in between. There's been high points and low points, triumphs, fails (epic fails, in some cases) and three months that were spent on the other side of the Atlantic. Two years ago I was wetting my feet in the blogging world, not really knowing what I was doing, not really sure where I was going (which, honestly, I still don't know and frankly I'm okay with that), and just more or less wandering around randomly poking things. Proverbially, of course.

Two years later there's still plenty of wandering, some poking, a 53,000+ word novel (yeah, that's how many words Murphy and Me has), and a series of asshattery best described as Things to Know. There's also a heaping dose of reality and, always, too much coffee for one wandering Sagittarius.

Raise your glass - or your coffee cup, you know I'm not picky - and we'll just say here's to two years down, and as many more to go as we can handle. Cheers!

Dear Baby Binsk

[This is a letter to my younger self from me now.]

Hey Binsk,

It's me. Sorta all grown up. We just turned twenty-one a little over a week ago, on Turkey Day. Yeah. You, me, our cartilege piercing, and our tattoo we've more or less named Otis. He's still rockin' the tan line from this summer, still lookin' for that horizon. Much like us, really.

Anyway, there's something that I need to tell you. Or rather, we need to talk about.

It's about Al*. I know you're going to have a hell of a time believing me on this one, but, Al got married yesterday. Before you freak out that I've somehow estranged us from the family and eloped in Mexico or anything, we're still single. We've got crazy curly long hair (though, I kept chopping it all off at one point, and now I'm letting it grow back) and, well, I'm currently in Wales. Yeah. You'll enjoy that, trust me.

Anyway. Yeah, Al got married yesterday. Don't look at me like that, all wide-eyed and whatnot. I remember just as clearly as you do freaking out in the kitchen when he came to the back door looking to drop off a can collection bag for Scouts and we thought he was there to see us and we freaked, royally, because we didn't want Mom or Dad to see him because we hadn't told them. I remember him and his dad and his friend turning up in the driveway during Italian Festival one summer, wanting to know if I wanted to go with them while I sat writing The Crossing from composition book to Word. I also remember being smooshed in the backseat, too, with the cake we'd made for Saint Mary's.

I remember all of that, just like you do. Just like I remember the way I felt junior year when I put on the dress I'd worn at Heather's wedding to go to my first prom. Eventually we'll be able to look at those pictures - and the ones from senior year - without tearing up quite as badly. For now, we'll leave them in the picture box in the living room with the ones from Music Club trips to NYC and other places we've been.

We're quite the wanderers, you and I. But that doesn't really hit us until we get to college and start blogging. Originally, we're Confessions of a College Coffee Addict but being a Wandering Sagittarius is what we are, so we change it.

I know it hurts, Binsk. I know it just tears at you to let him go that last time because you don't want to hurt him when you go away to college, and that's fine. I understand that. We don't regret that. We just thought he would wait for us. Can't really blame him for finding someone else, even if we think things moved a bit fast for them. And we were suitably stunned when we found out he was engaged.

Yesterday was their big day and you're over three thousand miles away living a very, very different life.

There's nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to regret. I know it's hard. Really hard. But you've done great things. You've got, at this point, 1,994 pages of composition book filled with a novel; you've got thirty parts on a blogging series that's more or less turned into a book called Murphy and Me; you've recently celebrated a birthday and can legally drink the US now; and you've turned out to be one strong, confident, bluntly honest person who, at all times, remembers to be herself before anything else. Because that's all we can do. Just be us. Even if it hurts.

I thought of how I was going to tackle this particular subject, wondered if there was a line I was going to cross that I shouldn't cross, and then decided, like with a lot of things, to screw it. Life is about crossing lines and this? This is hella personal, but at the same time, it's not. Don't ask me to explain that more fully because, well, I probably can't.

We're a little bitter, some days, I won't lie. We wonder how we can write such a wonderful romance between fictional characters, but can't live it in our own life. Our sister tells us to be patient, that God won't give us more than we can handle. But boy, it does seem like a lot sometime, if not in physical things, than especially with emotional.

Of course, this comes roughly two weeks before we head back to the US from spending three months in a foreign country. Because, well, if we didn't have bad luck we wouldn't have any luck at all. Coincidentally, that was the inspiration for Murphy and Me. And we haven't stopped writing since.

That, Binsk, is the biggest thing. We haven't stopped writing, living, breathing, loving, and wandering. We haven't stopped being us because of this fiasco. And it is a fiasco. It threw us for a loop when we got that random friend request, and it threw us for a loop to realize yesterday they got married. What we can do, though, is to recognize it, and not let it be more than a fading thing.

We can also sit back with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and wait for the wedding photos to crop up and crack up (in more than one way, probably) but that's a normal reaction.

The other normal reaction for us to write him into whatever we're working on, and we have. In little ways, we have. We'll listen to music, cry a little, and keep writing.

This will, eventually, be just another day to us. Another Saturday because, honestly, it doesn't have specific meaning to us. It's not our wedding day, not our anniversary (or one that we should be keeping track of, at any rate) and it's really not important to us. Mean? Slightly. Truthful? Definitely. And that's one thing we refuse to do, is lie to ourselves. Not when it counts the most.

We've come along way. And you've come further yet to get here. We've got more to go, too. More wandering, loving, writing, and most importantly, living. Live it up, kid, cause this life? It's the only one we've got. And to spend it freaking out about a path we didn't take? Not worth it, no matter what we thought he was worth to us back then because there's a Murphy out there for us somewhere. We've just gotta run into a few cars to find him, first.

Love,
Louise

All That I Am

I'm a writer. If three scenes of something called Icicle Man and however many parts of Murphy and Me we're up to at the moment hadn't clued you in, you've been living under a rock for about a year and a half. Or maybe just the half. Either way, it's pretty damn evident that I like to write fiction, and I think (hopefully without sounding arrogant) that I write well.

But that's not all that I am.

I am also a sister, a daughter, an aunt, an international, a woman (or young lady, or, hell, some days I'm still a kid at heart), a coffee lover, a tea snob, a traveler, a blogger, and a member of the world at large. I was also a soccer player, too, and still am an avid follower of sports. I'm into theater, too. I like musicals. There's more to me than just being a writer.

I bet there's more to you, too.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's your blog, and I'm not going to tell you what to put on it or in it or whatnot, because I wouldn't want someone to try and do that to me. I'd probably snark at them. We all start blogs for different reasons. And I have nothing against book reviews and blogs that help you become a better writer. I think that's great. My writing's not perfect (probably nowhere near, truthfully) and sometimes it's really helpful to have a place that you look to for answers, other than the ones you might pull off the internet or out of textbook. It's nice. It's like leaving a question in the comment box and then checking back later to find that someone actually answered you instead of letting you wallow in your own confusion.

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that, well, most of you - and I'm going to stick to being as general as I can because I know what it's like to be singled out unawares - are teenagers. And, if I remember back to a time not too long ago, I was one, too. There were some pretty interesting things happening in my life at the time. I was in high school, going through classes and generally thinking that I hated AP, ACE, and anything that had to do with the prospect of graduating by a certain number. I was also trying to query my first manuscript, the thing I've been working on (and am closer to finishing, but haven't gotten there yet, damn it) for six years.

Namely, there was a whole 'nother level of me ready and waiting to have a spin at the wheel. Granted, I didn't start blogging seriously (though, if you can call some of my posts serious, I'll send you some truffles) until the tail end of my first year of college. Mostly because it was something fun and mostly because, well, I see the world a little differently. Not just because I'm a different person than you, but because, well, I have this theory that if you stripped away the superficial stuff, you'd find that a lot of the real world problems are my problems, too. Just worded differently, if you will. With a different set of consequences.

That and I needed an outlet to generally rant about life when it got to be a little too much, and I don't surgarcoat things. Someone once upon a time called that refreshing.

I think what I'm trying to say is that no matter how interesting the book you're reviewing is, the person behind the blog is probably far more interesting than any made up character could be. Mostly because someone has to make them up. It takes a certain amount of courage (stupidity, too, in some cases) to blog about yourself to the general internet, and it looks really scary. It's like life, though. People are nice, and people would also just as soon add insult to injury, if they could.

We've seen one side of what you are, maybe let us see another side. A different side. The side that says, bring it on, world. I'm ready. Even, well, when you're not ready. But that's half the fun, really. And that's how you grow in more ways than one.

One and Twenty

Then: Cat, Music, and Care Bear required.

There's just something about saying one and twenty instead of twenty-one that makes me smile in that little way. Don't ask because I really can't explain it.

I know that last year I did this whole big post where I talked about my year in review, and then kind of looked ahead to what it was going to be like to be twenty. I wrote that in my corner single in Jackson, back in New York, shortly after getting a tattoo and accepted in the study abroad program for Wales. One whole year later, I'm sitting in my single with an en suite bathroom in Carmarthen, Wales, and I'm staring my birthday in the face. And I thought about doing another year in review type of thing where I made it a little easier to keep track of events by going month by month, maybe adding some pictures, and I was sitting there planning and creating and I more or less decided that I didn't want to do that.

It would be a lie to say it hadn't been an interesting year. I was a little out of my depth at times (Two Cities, anyone? The chemist trying to be an economist and sociologist?) and I nearly spazzed out completely on an occasion or two, but I bucked it up, got some assistance, and finished out the year strong. My adviser was a wonderful help - the one line he said to me, when I was freaking out about organic II, This is not beyond you, I wrote into my novel - and my family, as always, was with me, too.

They're still with me, even though they're three thousand miles across an ocean and I call them twice a week.

Twenty-one is that magic number in the States, the one that says you can legally consume alcohol. Europe in general? Well, people have been drinking for about two years already, by that time, so it's not that big of a deal, and it's not that big of a deal to me, either. I'm a big fan of hand-pulled cask ales, but, I'm not really interested in getting so inebriated that you can't remember what you did the night before, let alone who you did it with.

On another note, my drivers license expires tomorrow. Mostly so NYS DMV can give me a new one that doesn't say Under 21 in red down the side of my picture. That picture? I was sixteen when they took that.

Which seems like a long time ago now, truthfully.

If you ask me what I want for my birthday, I'm going to tell you that I don't want much, if anything at all. I'm currently living in a foreign country for another month; my mother has come visit me in said foreign country; I've had another year of good health and good fortune (I do count when I fell down the stairs at work and didn't break anything incredibly good fortune); I've made great friends while I've been over here, and I've made memories to last me the rest of my life.

I've been handed an amazing opportunity so far, one that I'm pretty sure I've done a good job of making the most of. And maybe that's all I can do, at this point, is take each year that I'm given and continue to make the most of it. We only get one ride on life, and it's what you do to make your ticket count that matters. You don't have to live loud to live big, but the important part is that you remember to live.

So, I propose a toast. Not just to me for tomorrow when I turn another year older (and possibly wiser, too) but to all of us, who take it one day at a time and leave no open space unwandered. Here's to another year of good health, good fortune, and plenty of opportunities to come your way. Cheers.

Also, it's perfectly acceptable to substitute Oreo Truffles and/or Sticky Toffee Pudding for birthday cake when applicable. They're both very delicious.

Oh, and one more thing before I forget completely (as this happens some years), to all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, have a very happy Thanksgiving in whatever way you celebrate.



Now: Backpack and Adventure Required

Things I Learned in High School

[In no particular order.]

- Taking independent study band sucks.

- Especially when you take it so you can take ACE US History, and normally this wouldn't be a big deal, only the ACE history book is so damned dry you'd expect it to light itself spontaneously on fire.

- Even though you have friends that you could tell anything to, there are some things that you simply can't tell them.

- When your math teacher and your sophomore English teacher are married to each other, it's a little difficult to get away with writing in a composition book in class because she knows it's the novel.

- It's okay to have the same teachers for multiple classes multiple years.

- Unless you sit there in AP English wondering why she couldn't have retired before you got there.

- Trumpet plungers were not meant to be thrown at the wall for entertainment, unless of course they were, and yours truly still has the record for the longest distance from the wall and Andrew has the record for how many times in a row he could get it to stick.

- Of course I have a band lesson this period, and not just because I want to miss class.

- It's okay to "kill" people if you're going to process them in Forensics class soon after.

- Though it's not very helpful when the dead body keeps squirming because he doesn't like bugs.

- How to hawk baked goods in the crowds on vintage weekend outside the bars because they were the easiest people to get to part with their pocket change.

- FYEX (First Year Experience) had to be the more worthless "class" ever.

- One of the trumpets falling off the risers every year during the first week of school.

- "A wooden clarinet is the orgasm of clarinets."

- Being Raggedy Ann for Halloween my senior year and lifeguarding IAC's still wearing my red, hand-made yarn wig.

- Powderpuff Football. Only we forgot most of the time to go for the flags as it was simpler to flat-out tackle people.

- Scuba diving in the pool.

- The massive bruise on the inside of my thigh from the giant's ladder in Lifetime Sports

- Jesse's face when he found out I'd sprained my ankle playing indoor soccer in the middle of basketball season.

- Though, the above didn't really matter because it's not like I played in the games, anyway.

- Having whooping cough as a sophomore and continuing on with life like I wasn't trying to hack up a lung simply by walking from class to class.

- My love of films can probably stem from film analysis sophomore year.

- I can write flash fiction; it might not come out very good or make much sense, but I can do it.

- I vowed never to take any more business classes ever after sophomore year.

- Though we made the family "dream" of having an ice cream boat kind of come true that year, with the magnets to prove it.

- My classmates weren't as unobservant as I once thought.

- Humming the Vonage theme song in public yields a lot of interesting looks from boys in leather jackets.

- Music Club trips to NYC were, in some ways, the highlight of the year.

- Riding three hours to Buffalo on a school bus was an interesting experience, especially for my rear end.

- I got really good at getting on the bus in the morning, leaning against the window, and falling back asleep for the twenty minutes it took to get to town.

- I cemented how easy it was to live out of a Jansport backpack on a daily basis, in an academic sense.

- It's a bad idea to let your friend fake-bleed you at the Freshman Humanities Renaissance Fair in the courtyard because it somehow leads to higher-ups thinking that you and two other girls have been cutting yourselves.

- In order to get out of there as soon as possible, showing said higher ups the slightly oozing patch of psoriasis you've digged open on your ankle will do the trick nicely.

- You might think you have things under control, but until you break out completely and totally in itchy bits that may or may not leave scars because of something that you have no genetic control over, you find out just how much you really have to keep your head high to live with things.

- I found out that, sometimes, when you really love someone, you let them go to make sure you don't hurt them.

- The above, however, does not ensure that they will be there when you return at a time convenient for you.

- Eating school food made me the fan of tacos that I am today.

- I think I wasn't too far into my sophomore year when I realized that I didn't want to be one of the popular girls; I just wanted to be me, whoever that was going to develop into.

- How not to sugarcoat things.

- Sunday in the Park with George is a truly awful musical when you're eighteen and there's such shows like Avenue Q and Monty Python's Spamalot to be seen instead.

- I don't like rye bread, and while it might look similar to wheat, it sure as shit isn't.

- Never had the urge to drink illegally while in high school.

- High school is a different ball game that takes a bit to get used to, and it doesn't help when you're about as down as you could get when you get in there.

- I learned how to temporarily shut up and go with the flow because that's what it took to do a good job on a job that needed to get done.

- You can be a bit busted if you know how to sit there and superglue yourself back together while paying attention in math.

- How not to give a damn about certain things.

- How to make my mom understand that being in the nineties in calculus might not be something that I achieve, and how to settle for high eighties when I'm still trying my best.

- How to play alto saxophone because who ever heard of a clarinet in jazz band?

- The opening to Colt 45 while tooling around the nation's capital for senior trip.

- That it's kind of cool to think about double calculus as double potions, but it's nowhere near as cool.

- I can't stand Ernest Hemingway.

- How cool having a sister is, and how much we do, despite our age difference, have in common.

- Going to Open House still in a uniform and cleats is perfectly acceptable.

- Trying to get to first base in softball to listen to your dad give you advice and tell you bad jokes to make you giggle.

- There are things in life more important than soccer.

- The new basketball uniform shorts were the most comfortable things in the world.

- Riding on the bus with the baseball team wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

- Riding the bus, period, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

- How to feel like you're stretched in fifty different directions, but still together enough to get everything finished that you need to, and well enough that nobody thinks twice about it.

- There's only so many times that you can say, "Eh, tomorrow" because your tomorrows start to run out.

- What it feels like to finish something significant.

- Writing a senior thesis in five weeks absolutely sucks.

- Being yourself, no matter how crazy and unconventional that might be, is so much easier and so much more worth it than trying to be anyone else.

- I'm about as bad at economics as I am at math.

- I like dressing up and looking decidedly female every now and then.

- Coffee is not only lovely, but also a necessity.

- Going to Europe and then returning and having the opening night and subsequent three performances of the school play when you have no voice makes life very, very interesting.

- Graduation is one of those things that always seems like it'll never get there, and then when it's looming, you wonder where the time's gone.

- A locker only holds so much stuff before it decides it won't shut, open, or even move.

- The instructions, "Put in your combination and then continue to turn like a doorknob" would have been really helpful that first time standing by 477 and wondering how to get into it.

- I don't think I was ever late to English my first year because my locker was right across the hall from the English room.

- I took one art class, and that was more than enough for my four years in that building.

- Sadly, cafeteria food doesn't get much better when you hit high school.

- Cafeteria's came with vending machines.

- Get there early enough so that you have a parking space.

- Doesn't matter what kind of car you drive, just as long as you have one to drive.

- How I ever passed my Earth Science regents is beyond me because there were eight seniors in a class of sophomores, and most of us, since it was the end of the day, slept through most of it.

- AP Calculus, AP Economics, and AP English was going to be the death of me my senior year.

- New York State Regents are, for a lack of a better phrase, the shitty things on the face of the Earth.

- The SAT's are just as bad as everyone says they are.

- Giving blood is fun. What's not so fun is passing out and scaring the living bejeezus out of your two best guy friends when you fall out of your chair.

- Playing softball after giving blood is always advisable - when half the team has done it, what else can you do?

- Things weren't always easy. Do the best you could, and hope for the rest to sort itself out.

- NYSSMA is a great excuse to miss school, though they'll flay you alive when you have whooping cough and are trying not to hack up a lung while you play classical music.

- When in NYC, one must visit in a Starbucks. That is nonnegotiable.

- I was the band geek, the writer, the athlete, and the chick with enough brains to graduate tenth out of ninety-seven. It hasn't always been easy, but if you stick to what you know and follow your instincts, the end result is pretty good.

Wandering Heart

There's a reason that I chose the title The Wandering Sagittarius for this blog. It's a two part equation, though both sides aren't equal. I'm a Sagittarius, and I've done enough posts to let you know some of the finer details of what exactly the temperament and personality of a Sage is. But that's only part of me. The other part is the wandering part. Is the part of me that doesn't want to be tied down for long. The part of me that wants to wander through this world to see what it holds - and what it doesn't - and then come back and share that because it's made me a different person. Something bigger. Or smaller. The point is that it's changed me.

I'm not going to say I'm fearless. Far from it, actually. I'm scared of a lot of things, most of which you'd probably laugh at me for. I do, on the other hand, have enough courage to put aside my fears and wander through this life with a good pair of sneakers and an open mind. Not to mention a sense of adventure.

I love the girls I live with. Honestly, I do. And I get that they worry a bit, especially when I travel.

I might never come back to the United Kingdom. So while I'm here, I'm going to do everything in my power to see as much and experience as much as I can. If that means that I do things - like taking in an English Premiere League game if I can get tickets - well, you can come with me (in which soccer's not their cup of tea) or you can be behind me and wish me a happy time. I might not have experienced the actual European soccer atmosphere, and yes, I know it's a common game (and honestly, that made me a little angry because I played it for fourteen years) but this is something that I want to do, and something that I have the opportunity to.

Despite what people might think, I'm not a complete dumbass. I know how to travel safely and smartly. The whole reason that I usually walk somewhere with purpose is because to more or less meander around somewhat aimlessly implies that you're lost. If you don't imply that you're lost, ain't nobody going to question whether you really know where you're going or not. If you're going to be totally lost, go with confidence in the direction you think you ought to. Eventually, ask for directions.

I have a wandering heart that beats toward adventure. It knows enough to do what it needs to - always get the job done - but in the end, it's going to want to wander hither and yon. Eventually, it'll wander back.

Always Blunt, Never Dull

Right. Well, for as wonderful a time as I’m currently having in this country, I gotta say that I am less than impressed with the quality of my wireless. Namely, every time you breathe wrong it cuts out. So, instead of writing this post in my Blogger editor like I would normally do, I’m typing in a word document (which will then be transferred to the internet later since if it’s a word document forever nobody’s going to read it) and if you couldn’t possibly tell, I’m not thrilled about it.

I’m also not overly thrilled about making a tentative return to inkpop.

I’ve ranted and raved about the site in the past. I know I have. Don’t believe me, you can literally look it up. The thing is though, it’s a great tool. There’s nowhere else I can think – other than Authonomy – that you can have your project on an editor’s desk so easily. Okay, maybe easy isn’t the right word. It’s not painless, either. Let me put it this way – it doesn’t require much effort.

And before all of you who have inkpop accounts and steadily update, swap, pick, read, and do whatnot in front of the screen between the times that you work on your algebra homework and think about the cute guy in the locker next to you and how he doesn’t notice you and wouldn’t that be great for a book jump down my throat, let me point some things out.

You haven’t actually sent a query letter in this whole process. You’ve put your book online – or what of it that you have done (which, let’s be honest, there’s very little on my own account that’s actually finished) – and you’re trying to get people to read it to put it in the top five. I can respect that. For the most part. But there’s nothing much to that. Sure you have to beg, borrow, steal and occasionally offer your first born to have someone read it and pick it because hot damn, you’re sitting at number six and that fifth spot looks mighty tempting.

Or you could be down in the ranks of the un-ranked – like me! – where you more or less have the desire to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do the whole American thing where you take nothing and make it into something.

Newsflash – If you haven’t exactly done that in your writing, then it’s not going to work outside your writing.

I’m going to be bluntly honest because, well, that’s the only way that I know how to be when it comes to writing. Including my own. And I’ll be the first one to line up and tell you that yeah, the entire opening three hundred pages of my novel needs work. A lot of work. With the exception of the prologue, it was first written six years ago and the last time it was edited was about two, so, yeah, it should probably be labeled as a construction site. Not to mention things have changed – in terms of characters and storyline details – that need to be added to make things not only more clear at that moment but also down the line since I, as a writer, don’t tell you anything you don’t need to know either now or in the immediate, near, or distant future of the storyline.

In plain yeoman’s terms I’m not going to shower you with prose that doesn’t do shit for the continuation of the plot and character development.

Why am I rehashing this? Because when I finally get the lead out of my ass and finish my novel and start to actually edit the beginning in earnest, things are going to hit the fan.

And I might – just might – try to gather some readership. Maybe something like what I have for Murphy and Me which, although it has forty-three comments, they’re not substantial. Do I appreciate them and the people who took the minute they had to do them? Of course I do. I’d be an idiot not to. But they’re not very substantial, they don’t really let me know how things are going in terms of the story as a whole, and they really only tell me that I’m a funny writer. That’s great, thanks. I really do appreciate that. But it’s not what I’m looking for, and it’s not what I need.

I also need for people to put on their big-boy pants and deal with chapter length.

I would suggest splitting up the first chapter into a few pieces, it's a bit too much to handle--and a few too many characters.

Can’t handle it? Why don’t you go back to reading storybooks, darling?

Mean? Eh. Possible. Honest? Hell yes. Did anybody point out to J.R. Tolkien that maybe he should cut down on the pages long dialogue and description because it might be too difficult to handle? Pretty sure I hear crickets and ooh, look, a tumbleweed!

My point is, always has been, and always will be, allow your writing to speak for itself. Give us, the reader, a shove toward it with maybe a, yeah, well, it’s got core values, vampires, magic, and gypsies, just give it a go and let us have at it. If we don’t like it, we don’t like it. If we hate it, well, we’ll mask how we’re really feeling and hopefully not break your soul in the comments since, well, it’s not really a good thing to cry over your keyboard. Makes the buttons not work.

Now. I know I’ve got lurkers. I haven’t checked my tracker in months, but I know that I have lurkers. And I know I have regular readers. And I know that I might have just offended someone – or maybe more than just one person, probably – and if you don’t like it, well, leave a comment. Tell me I’m wrong. You can also tell me where to shove it. If you liked it, well, tell me that, too. The point is, tell me something.

That’s the point of writing, isn’t it?

Things to Know: International Edition III

- I don't want to hear a word about where I've been blogging wise about college, maybe what Murfee's been up to, and just generally life in general because you definitely don't want to hear when the last time I wrote in my journal was.

- I feel like one exceptional fail of an Abroadest because I didn't turn an article in to my editor for this week's edition.

- Horoscopes are, however, still under my domain.

- Which reminds me that I have a batch I need to do.

- Kind of like making cookies.

- While having the song Oh Maria on YouTube on repeat.

- Well, that song along with Joyful, Joyful (from Sister Act 2), Zero to Hero from Hercules, Club Can't Handle Me by Flo Rida, Spectacular, Spectacular from Moulin Rouge, and on one occasion Hallelujah from Shrek.

- Oh Maria is the one from Sister Act, in case you were wondering.

- I had to post a Facebook link on the wall of my editor for her to stop asking me WTF is Skip-Bo!?

- Got approval, booked the hostel, and it's official - I'm staying in London an extra day next week.

- Which gives me the opportunity to see my friend from high school currently studying at Oxford.

- Wanna know something very funny? Hollywood gets things a little bit wrong when it comes to history in certain parts of the world.

- Much as I like Mel Gibson - on his good days - there are some facts that are just quite screwed up about Braveheart.

- Though, way back when, if you had a tattoo, you were considered high class.

- If you didn't have ink, you tried the next best thing which was painting yourself with a plant called woad. Made you blue.

- Woad also acted as an antiseptic. So it was okay for you to get scratched in battle - since you ran into it naked, if you were a Celt - because it would heal better.

- It wasn't okay to get scratched, but you know what I'm trying to say, right?

- Now, before you went into battle, you also got yourself drunk on lots of honey mead.

- Another interesting point about woad is that it also acts as an hallucinogen.

- Naked + Alcohol + Hallucinogenic Blue Woad = No fear when facing down a Roman.

- (This is exactly as I have it written in my notebook) Celts vs Celts: Drink stupid for a week; Celts vs Romans: Damn Romans kept coming back.

- Celts had body hair. Because Romans shaved themselves, they considered the Celts to be barbarians. Because they were hairy.

- A Celtic chief could be either male or female.

- If you weren't feeling well, you took something valuable and threw it into the lake and wished to the goddess that you would feel better.

- They drained a lake in Wales and found all sorts of neat shit - including a chariot.

- How badly do you feel to chuck a chariot in a lake?

- Want to have a hairstyle like a Celt of old? Get what equals cement, animal fat, and coat your hair in it. Then spike it.

- Me thinks I'll keep my slightly unruly head of hair. No offense.

- And I think I'll sleep now.

Six and Eleven

I haven't worked on composition book eleven of my six-year-in-progress novel since January. Which translates into Louise hasn't worked on the novel since her grandfather (in every way but actually being my blood grandfather) passed away shortly before I was due back for spring semester last year.

Writing is a way to pull the frayed edges of myself back together. When it serves the purpose, it really helps me to relax, unwind, unload, and remind myself that I'm an optimist when it comes to life and that there is a good side to practically everything. There are certain things that are exceptions to that, but for the most part, there is a bright side. Sometimes it's tarnished and dull. Still, it's there waiting to be found if you've the right mind.

You've got to want to find it to find it when it doesn't want to be found.

I'm not like other writers. I'm not going to force myself to get something out onto paper because I haven't written in a week or two. Hell, I haven't written in ten months other than some Murphy or maybe for the blog. I've written little snippets of stuff that comes to mind, but in terms of working on the novel and progressing and finishing it - it hasn't been there. I know better than to force something that's not there and doesn't want to be. If I've got nothing, there's a good reason for it. Probably more than one, too.

In a lot of ways ending this novel will be like ending a part of myself. Never do I mean in a self-harm kind of way - I don't do that, I never have, and I never will - but I mean in a sense of a stage of my life coming to a close. We know that we're different people when we're children. There are things we grow out of to grow into, and things that stick with us through those times into the young adulthood that we all face. And there was a time six years ago, that I traded a part of myself - a part of my innocence - and I couldn't get it back. The following two years were not the easiest. Freshman year of high school, this big damned secret, the shame, the fear, and me being one of the best internalizers that I know, kept everything bottled shut.

Except for when I would write. I wouldn't write about what happened, but I figured that if I was in such a shambles - and trust me, there were days when I would sit in class and think about what had happened and half expect him to come through the damn doorway into the classroom, and then just cry - then someone else's life didn't have to be. I needed something to do, something to take my mind off of reality when it got a little too heavy. And then it just went from there, growing into something bigger and more than I had originally intended it to. I couldn't stop its growth because in a way, I was growing with it. I grew a lot in two years. In ways that most people wouldn't expect.

And I realized that maybe I'm pretty good at this whole writing thing. I used to, when I was little, stand outside with a soccer ball on a string (I cannot for the life of me remember what exactly it's called, but that's the main idea), look at the gnarled apple tree against the little runoff creek, and think what would happen if it was a house. Who would the people who lived there be. What were their names. What were they like.

A boy and his grandmother. Sometimes he had a dog. At one point he had a dragon.

Ralurick lives with his grandmother for most of The Crossing. There are mentions in the beginning - though brief - of the time when he lives with both his parents and everything is quite hunky dory. For the rest of the book, when he's not wandering with Jack through foreign countryside running from some magical creature or the villain of the book, he lives with his grandmother.

There are similarities. There have to be. I'm not good enough to keep every little bit of myself out of my own writing. The times when Ral can't really handle being emotional? Been there done that. Jack trying to figure out why exactly he was on Typrien and what he was going to do with his life, once he reached a certain age? Been there as well.

In some ways, their story is my story. And my story is theirs. It's been six years. And while part of me is quite anxious to get this over with, to end this remarkable journey that these three have come on, part of me isn't quite ready to be completely at ease with shutting the door on a part of my life that's so largely influenced who I am overall.

Maybe it's not so much shutting a door but turning to a blank page. Some of my toughest days were hashed out in those pages. The days I stayed home from school because of whooping cough are in those pages as well. My own broken love affair is scattered through Anna and Richard, Jack and Kayley, and Ralurick and Bella.

It's a lot. That's an understatement.

I've had people tell me - through the Inkpop message boards, actually, which I haven't visited in months - that the fact that I see the story I want to write as a movie in my head isn't real writing. It's copying. That I'm not creating anything. Yet I have something real and tangible in my hands. I have composition books with writing, with characters, faces, places, words, and meaning. You have this drive to have your project be number one in the lists, to be on a publisher's desk. I've got that, too. That's what I want as well. When I think it's ready.

When I've finished it.

I'm pretty decent when I've got something half-assed written. The finished product? I want you to remember me for the stories that I can tell. For the depth that I have as a writer and as a person. For what I can create.

Writing is personal for me. It's not mechanics and sentence structure. Well, it is, but it isn't. It's no the main focus. It's me taking you somewhere and you going on a ride through a bit of life that, while in places, might not be grand, but still real. Life can be glorious and big, or it can be simple. Easy and difficult.

Most important is that you don't get to decide - you get to deal.

I only get serious and slightly insightful when I've got good reason. Paying a visit to Dylan Thomas's writing shed and the boathouse where he used to live would be what spawned that because for the first time in months I wanted to write when I got back on the bus. Actually, I wanted to break the lock on the door of the shed, sit at the same desk as he did - which is still exactly how he left it - and start writing. I probably would have gotten arrested and it would have been bad manners, and I would probably be packing for New York instead of writing this, but it made me want to continue. It really made me want to finish what I had started. To continue and to gather the spread threads of this long story and weave them together. To finish the tapestry.

To finish a part of me.

Human

As much as we may not like to admit it - and I've touched on this before - we're human. Therefore, we're mortal.

We're not bulletproof.

We've not hearts made of stone (though, some may try to say otherwise) and when we feel, we feel deeply, madly, and without consent. When we hurt, we cry. If we don't, sometimes it's much worse that shaking a soda bottle and waiting for the top to explode off because it can't handle the pressure built inside. That's the way we are, the way we're built.

The past couple of weeks have been...interesting. There were some liquor bottles stolen from work - nobody's been arrested, though an accusation was made - and that accusation came down on a friend of mine who, while he's a little rough around the edges, has a good heart. Sees the world a little differently, but is a good person (I'd like to think I don't stay too long around the ones who aren't). This whole incident couldn't have come at a worse time for him - one of his good friends and classmates (one of my old high school classmates, too) committed suicide last week. At the age of twenty, the day after his birthday.

Now, everyone has baggage. I'd like to think that I've managed to get mine down to a carry-on sized bag covered in blue plaid, but there are some people I know that have an entire set - slightly mismatched in pattern - that they tote with them because they're not ready to let go, or they can't yet, because they're not done collecting. They're not ready to really start processing through it, or they haven't met someone to make them go through it. Force them to look at it, examine it, and sort out what should/could/might have been a better choice and what things weren't anybody's fault, and just those things that life likes to chuck out on a regular basis to see how you deal. Those little tests, those moments when I remember my sister's words to me: God will only give you what you can handle - no more, no less.

Not everybody handles it the same way.

And sometimes it's enough to bring a charismatic, flamboyount young man down a couple of pegs to where he feels he's not bulletproof anymore. Where's he's hittable, sinkable, and slogging through the undergrowth without something to hack at it. As a friend, watching him at the moment, and hoping that he keeps a job that he's had for four years and that he keeps everything together, I don't know what to do to help him find that thing to hack at the undergrowth. Or to find him a cart for his baggage.

What I do know is that I'm not the person he needs to sit down and go through it with him. I can't offer to do that with him, because it's not me that he needs in that capacity. I have a different purpose. I need to show him that yes, the light at the end of the tunnel might be the uncoming train - a la Murphy - but it also might be only what it looks like. A light at the end of a tunnel. A way out. And you just chug through and hope for the best. You do the best you can with what you have to work with. You ignore what you can until, well, you can't really ignore it anymore, and then you man up, sit down, open your baggage and sort through all the dirty laundry you've been neglecting since you can remember. It's painful, it stinks, and it's absolutely disgusting in some places, but it's utterly necessary. You file things away, you hold onto what you need to - even if you think you don't want to - and you remember that hey, you lived through it once, and you can do it again. You remember the people that have helped you along the way, whether they hefted a suitcase for you, or they pointed you in the direction you needed to go.

You smile, say thank you, and you plod through your own way because you grow. You find a little more of yourself you didn't know you had. You're a little wiser, a little more with it. Not quite as bulletproof as you once were, but we're all human.

And that just might be the most important thing to remember.

You. Yeah, You. With the Hair.

[A fairly short letter to my fifteen-year-old self. This is not beyond you.]

Molls,

Hey kid. It's been a rough year, hasn't it? But if I'm writing to you, and I'm twenty, and you're fifteen, means you made it through it, didn't ya? Yeah, yeah, I can see that little half-smile, the one we wear when we're like, yeah, I'm good like that. You keep that smile. I wanna see it every day, at least once in the mirror. Even when you don't think you have anything to smile about, I wanna see it.

I know you feel twenty kinds of busted right now. I remember that. Wasn't a good time for us - lots of tears, lots of other emotion, and the fact that Ryan was going to go away to college was seriously freaking us out on the inside. Not that we let anybody see how much that bugged us. But you did good things, too. And good things happened. Remember, you got the highest score out of the freshman on that Language Arts Olympiad thingy? You got a medal, and were all smiley because most of the family was there to see it, too. And it felt like things were looking up again, like things were going right. Um..you win that again. As a senior. You can probably tell that you like English and writing a lot. Well, you more or less kick ass about it.

Another thing you kick ass about? You write one hell of a narration paper your junior year. And you read it in front of the class, and you shed a tear or two because it more or less feels a lot like healing. Takes you two drafts to figure out how to say everything without giving anything away to the only boy sitting in the room - who has an oblique reference in the narration - and you rock out with it. As only you can. Coincidentally, it's the same year that you really get a love of movies and write some pretty good stuff in creative writing. Both of which have appeared on the blog (this blog) and one that appears on a literary site on the internet (you get privileges back, don't worry) where people read and comment. They like it. Some are confused by it, others just roll with it.

You do really well ignoring the politics of high school as best you can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You do well in the end. You graduate our lucky number.

Remember how we go off and on about every other year with being really sick? Well...you get sick. And nobody really knows what's wrong because our body is awesome like that. But the friends that you make in college - and I'm not telling you where, because I don't want to bias you in any way - are amazing. They buy you the twelve scooper from Friendly's because you went without dairy for two weeks.

There's a few more scars than you're used to. Some physical - you have three on your belly - and some are emotional - Ben - but you get through them. You take a shine to Ben and Jerry's ice cream and you do well. Granted, things have gotten rough the past couple of semesters, but you hang tough. You hang in there. Iron-Man soccer only with real life. Breathe. Sometimes you forget to do that.

You're a good person. You've got your moments - your days - when things don't go well, and you can't help but voice that opinion very loudly. That's okay. People listen (you've found the right ones!) and you have a blog with which to outlet yourself. This is your blog. This is part of your writing. Part of your personality that you share with people who won't know you in the world not made of the internet, and that's okay. Through your writing they know you. And that's how it should be.

You're still working on the novel. Six years later, and you're still working on it. Jack's dad's had three name changes. No pressure.

You get your ear pierced again. And by ear, I mean your cartilage on your right side. Mom and dad are pretty much okay with that. She's a little disappointed that you didn't tell her, but it's nothing like when you got the tattoo. I'm not joking. And they're okay with that, too. And believe me - you know this, too - it feels so much better not to keep anything from mama.

The hair. We have this philosophy that hair grows back. Okay. It just takes a really long time.

Eventually, you get a car. You will love this car. You will adore this car. You will name this car "Fred." You will park Fred next to a bunch of newer, more expensive cars when you go to college. And you will chuckle at this.

You're a special person to a special someone. She's three feet tall at the moment, is you incarnate at that age, and absolutely loves you. You stomped in the mud with her.

Heather. Feels like she's far away, huh? She's not. Not really. You have one summer when you get close - like you're three years apart instead of twelve - and it just grows from there. She's your sister. She's been there, done most of it, and lived to tell the tale. Trust her. And she makes these really good things called Monster Cookies - she will bribe you for writing with them - and she loves you. She'll always be your big sister, and you can't - and won't - ever forget that.

Not only do you have a job, you like it. Really. You've been there three years. And you'll hopefully be there three more.

There are a ton more things I could say about us - about our good stuff and our bad. The important part is this: even though it feels like the world is going to end, and things can't possibly get worse (you practically married Murphy, therefore you know things can always get worse) you lived through it. You grew stronger. More you. More us. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the person you're - we're - going to become, even if the way there was heavily under construction in places, and filled with gaping sinkhole craters masquerading as potholes in others. We did it. And that's all that matters.

Well done, Molls. Well done.

Love,
Louise

Bad Road

I'm an honest person. A very honest, very open, empathic personality.

Occasionally it comes back to bite me in the ass. Hard.

This past week has been quite rough on your favorite (I know, I'm assuming a lot here) Sagittarius. It's a combination of lots of little things - and some not so little things - and everyone has a tipping point. It fluctuates a little (not wildly, otherwise that would mean some pretty big issues) and I tipped over it yesterday. Yesterday night, in fact (which, if you read that and you're slightly confused, yesterday night is also synonymous with the phrase 'last night') and it wasn't pretty. It's never pretty when someone who's usually completely with it completely freaks out and dissolves into tears for an hour while on the phone with her mother. At eleven, no less. On a Thursday.

And I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that everything was back to where it should be. For the most part, it is.

I have a legitimate to-do list in which I write things down, give them a number (not for ordering purposes, just because things should be numbered - it's a quirk), and cross them off when I'm done with them. I've used my planner more this year than I have ever in my life, including high school where they gave us one at the beginning of the year. Then again, it also doubled as our hall passes, and they greatly frowned upon you if you had no pass in the hall or came to class without your planner. I have a planner. I write things in it. I used red ink for the important things - major due dates, major events, things like that. Regular homework (you can find my physics homework in black ink) is a different color and not all capped. And my to-do list is folded in half (both pages - we hit page two earlier this week) is under the binder clip holding the front pages, the weeks already gone by, together so when I open it it's on the current week. It's hectic, messy, and largely reflective of the girl that keeps it.

Girl here is deliberate. I don't feel very much like a young woman - a young, twenty-year-old woman - one her own at college and striking it out on her own feet at her own pace and time. I don't feel much like that at the moment, even though today is, as my mother told me yesterday night it would be, amidst my tears, better. I'm frustrated, overwhelmed, and the part of me that's never quit anything in my life no matter how badly it's going is trying to silence the part of me that keeps screaming, You can't do this!! Silencing that voice is like trying to silence that voice in the back of your head that says, your tummy doesn't feel well today. Where's those pants, the big ones...and the sweatshirt and t-shirt, because your love handles look exceptionally large today, too.... Those voices live together, and when one starts clamoring, the others aren't far behind and before you know it, your self-esteem drops through the floorboards and the pints of Ben and Jerry's at Wegman's start lookin' real good.

I've already had my pint for the week. Wednesday. Em and I really need a RENT night, so I biked to Weggie's, got three pints (the cashier, a guy about my age, just more or less looked at me, asked me how I was, and then looked at the amount of ice cream. I merely replied it was a 'rough week') and then went back to the house where she lives (she lives in a theme house) and we walked to the corner of Jackson (that feels like a second home to her, dare I say like the one in Townsend does) and proceeded to bask in each other's company and the music, story, and love of RENT. Thank you, Jonathan Larson. And thank you, Ben and Jerry.

I'm going to point out that we laughed ourselves silly when Collins first appeared, after getting mugged, and burst into the loft with a cheery, "Merry Christmas, bitches!" around a cigar. We backed it up three times, at least. Same with Mark's first twitch-dancing in Tango Maureen.

Now fast-forward to Thursday. The paper proposal went fine (I changed my entire topic from poverty to education, and should mention that we have been denied access to schools in Toronto, cited as, 'invasive' and therefore most of my 'research' is going to come from any and all random conversations I have with people on the streets) but the test - the retaking of the second exam - started off good.

And rapidly went downhill like a freakin' landslide of monumental proportions. Village-leveling, even.

It's frustration. It's frustration and self-doubt, those two things that constantly follow you everywhere and that you can't seem to get rid of. It's not that I don't know the material. I can tell you what's going to happen, what you should do, and I can do it on the homework just fine. Put me in a room with a test and I, for lack of a better way to phrase it, freak the fuck out. I don't know why. I just do. And, yesterday started off great - rolling along through the multiple choice, doing just fine and dandy - and then that first question that you're not sure of pops up. Then you start to doubt if you know it well enough, because the next one seems a little trippy. From there, everything snowballs ridiculously, and there's really nothing you can do about it, but sit there, swear silently in your head, try not to look at the cute guy further on down the row that you've somehow developed a ridiculous crush on, and before you know it, it's been three hours and you and another girl are the only ones left. And by that point, I was so frustrated that I wanted to cry, my calculator had died, and I wanted nothing more than for the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Test and everything.

Which led to the call home and freaking out, with much crying and sniffling, and I need to wash my one long-sleeved shirt before I wear it in public again, and Mama being Mama.

It's one thing to tell someone that you have enough faith in them for them to get the help that they need, and quite another to finally tell yourself that you can't go on the way you're going and that you need assistance. What we figured is that because the housing for next year, due to the fact that I'm going abroad is a little up in the air, that's been eating at me, in the back of my mind. I don't want to end up living somewhere in which I don't know my roommate, if I have one, or if I sign with someone in a quad, don't know the people I'm living with. That being said, there's also the frustration of not knowing what to do in order to actually meet these people going abroad in the spring, and the whole housing process in general. It's not like last year when I was looking for a single, and ran up two more floors and kind of scoped out, after the fact, where my room was and even looked at it because I knocked on the door of the girl living there. I knew what I was doing, what options I had. I don't know any of that, at the moment. And that's something that's probably been bugging me.

Another big, big issue is the freaking out about the tests. That's most likely not something the CTL (Center for Teaching and Learning, of which I'm not going back if I don't have to, simple as that - I thought it was maybe just multiple choice tests, and walked out of there feeling less intelligent than I was and like I hadn't accomplished anything) can fix, but probably anxiety related. And the way to fix that is to see someone at the Counseling Center.

Which, naturally, brings up a lot of internal conflicts.

The first, of course, being, I've got no problem telling someone who needs that extra person to talk to see someone. When it comes to yourself? You really have to tamp down every misconception you have, and a good part of your pride, too, because you need the help. I'm not going crazy in any aspect of my life other than the fact that there is something wrong when I sit down to a test. Some part of me that simply panics and goes blank, and gets frustrated. Something that I haven't been able to fix on my own, but that I need assistance with. So I have an appointment. It was really hard to do, but this can't go on. This disconnect between knowing the material - liking it, too - and shitty test scores can't go on. It's not good for my stress level - which is probably why my face looks like Louise a la middle school, again, and I'm really impressed that I haven't seriously started itching because of my psoriasis - and something that just keeps weighing you down no matter how you try to fix it on your own.

I'm not going to lie because there's part of me that's twitching sporadically at the thought of having an appointment at the Counseling Center, but if it's going to make things better (thinking and comparing back to surgery because nobody's really sure what's going on in there), then you hold your tears, let go of your pride a little, and reach out because it's what you need.

My very wise friend, who was lying face-down on the quad as I walked out of class earlier, told me, You can keep going on your own because you've always done it, alone. Or you don't have to do it alone.

It was hard. It was really hard to walk in there, and tell the secretary that you think you need to talk to someone because this whole freaking out about tests is not good. And that's that. Mama said last night that there was help available, and that all I had to do was reach out a little. People are willing to help; you just have to swallow enough times and allow them to. It's not saying that you can't do it on your own, it's just that you don't have to do it on your own.

Things are in a sort of fragile equilibrium at the moment. Taking little bites over a longer period of time (Mama) will help space everything out, and that way, when it comes time when everything is due, there is no freaking out. It's sound advice. Difficult for a recovering procrastinator, but sound advice.

Right now? Decompression is much needed. Which is why I'm going to spend the time until my appointment with Residential Education to talk about my housing for next spring working on some of my writing. Which, as usual, comes back at the most inopportune moments (not that I'm really complaining) and I've really made some headway with working on the beginning/editing slowly Sage, which is really due for an update. That, and maybe I'll get around to making more changes with The Crossing. And speaking of that, there's good news to come out of this whole emotional hurricane - I know where I'm going in the composition book. I know where things are heading from this last set of page-break stars. And I'm really excited for that.

Things are a little difficult. What's important to remember through everything is that there are people who love you, and care about you. And want you to do well, and look at the bigger picture when the details get overwhelming. Look at the bigger picture of coming home, going back to work, and seeing a smile on a little face. Normalcy in a way that's intimately familiar, and makes sense on a bone-deep level. See the bigger picture of what's in the Fall, and the adventures just waiting to happen, the new friendships waiting to blossom, and the chance to wander in a completely new place. It's entirely possible to drown in the details when living in the bigger picture, and you can't throw yourself a safety line. Or if you can, you're damn talented. I'm not that talented.

So now there's a bit of a plan, the repeated mantra of You can do this, and the reminder that there's a place that's always behind you. It ain't easy, but that's just life.

And this...well, this was a reminder. At exactly the right time, from someone who always knows what I need and when I need it.

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh?' he whispered.

'Yes, Piglet?'

'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'"

—
A.A. Milne

Absolutely Speechless

This is the Wordless Wednesday post on crack. Prepare yourself.

The view from the Top of the Rock.



Nothing is impossible.



Remember.



Dream.



Make a difference.



Go places (known also as Wander).



Walk softly and avoid manholes.


Essential.



Walk a different path.

How It Goes

Last year, a month or so before my sister's birthday, she sent me a link to an L.L. Bean bag that she really, really wanted. Because I know when to take a hint, and because I'm a good sister, I got her the bag as a birthday gift, and kept the travel coffee mug that I had originally gotten her to engrave with the name of the college that we went to for myself, and actually, this year, I use it regularly. Anyway, I opened my campus mailbox on day and found that I had a package, from Heather, and it was a cloth-covered mead notebook with a ribbon for a place holder. Inside the front cover was a simple note that read:

Molly Louise
Just because. You know how it goes.
By the way - I ADORE my new bag!! [There is a smiley face made from the exclamation points.] It Rocks.
See you soon.
LOVE YOU!
Heather

I taped that note inside the front cover so that whenever I opened it, I would see it, read it, and know that my sister is always with me. As for the notebook itself - I debated having it for a poetry book, and instead, actually, because it seemed fitting, settled on using it for a journal. I don't remember to empty my head every day; there are some things that need to rattle around for a little more, ferment a little better before they get dumped out. There are occasions when I update regularly [much like the blog, if you could see that comparison] and there are times when I forget that it's there. There is a side of me in those pages that is deeper, and a little more personal than the blog that I'm currently typing [and you're currently reading]. And that's the way it should be.

However, there are times when I bare as much of myself as possible [not in that sense, thank you very much] and give people a little more depth to me that I might otherwise not let you see. Then again, that's probably just me.

I actually got this idea from Connie, over at The Young and the Relentless, which was inspired by her Connie Diaries, which are snippets of her younger days from (I'm assuming) her diary.

I've given you snippets about what happened in Philadelphia last summer, but I haven't actually given you the whole story. And, as a prelude to a post that's still rattling around in my head that might take a little while to actually hash out, I wanted to share with you something more personal, and slightly out of the archive. So, instead of me telling you what happened in Philly, and making it all nice and pretty and snarky in places, I'm going to give you the "original" version. Which, for the most part, is nice and pretty and snarky in all the right places naturally. But you get the idea.

And maybe kickstart a new series in the process. No idea about that, though, because I don't censor my language as much in the journal as I do on here, mostly because I should be [except on occasions like this] the only person who reads said journal] and I try to keep the blog as family-friendly [teenie-bopper-and-up-friendly] as possible. I try, which isn't the same as succeeding, but I do try and for the most part, haven't failed epically yet. Yay! Points for the home team.

Oh, and anybody playing with the idea of keeping a journal or a diary? Do it. Find yourself a comfortable place to write things [I'm talking about the book or notebook, and if you're like me and can't write on a blank, lineless page without slanting, then get one with lines, there's no shame] because it's a marvelous thing to have to track your emotional and personal trials, tribulations, and growth. Also, those vacation memories you have, the stories that don't necessarily correspond to the pictures, this is how you remember them. Sometimes I wish I had done a better job of writing about things while I was in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia, but, I was twelve at the time and it didn't seem like that big a deal. And who knows? Twenty years from now, if I ever have kids [or grandkids, which is a really scary thought] they can read about the adventures [the good ones and the no-so-good ones] that I had when I was their age [or a little older]. Might even be a trip down Memory Lane worth strolling someday.

The Point: Keep some sort of journal or diary. Trust me, it's a good thing.

So, [trying to get back on topic here and failing miserably, as usual] here's the low-down on Philly, and maybe the start of something a little different and a little special. Just because, well, you know how it goes.

This was written the following morning from when I was actually supposed to fly home. Names of the airports that I should have been flying into have changed ['cause, you know, I'm slightly paranoid] but everything else has been left the same as the original entry. And I think that's all the stage-setting that you'll need.The name of my job has been abbreviated. And that, I believe, is the last service message that you should need. And yes, usually the morning after a stressful, oh-my-goodness-am-I-ever-going-to-get-home-I-just-wanna-see-my-mama-and-sleep-in-my-own-bed night is brighter and a little better. It also opens a period of time for reflection. Or sufficient ranting. You pick.

August 1, 2009 8:11 am, Philadelphia, PA

As you can see I never made it home. There's a reason.

The woman at the service counter never took my name and put it on the Ipthama list. So that wasn't an option. I go back to the Epthama gate and they keep moving that back. Now, instead of leaving at 8:50, they leave at 11:15. And I'm not guaranteed a seat. After all the people with seats have sat, she starts calling [names] mine. She not only butchers it, she doesn't say the entire thing. So I go and tell her this, and she says go. There were 2 people ahead of me, and they sat and the flight attendant looks at me and says, "Sorry sweetie, I'm out of seats." I get off the plane and they realize that someone got on who wasn't supposed to. I was not about to pull someone, already sitting, off a plane. I have more...no idea what I have but I couldn't. I wouldn't feel right. Even though I just wanted to go home.

I got a distress form from the airport, took a shuttle to a Holiday Inn, stood around some more in line, and got a room.

So, now I'm writing from the 10th floor of a Holiday Inn in Philly. I probably look like shit, I'm most likely not awake, and I'm hungry. My flight now leaves for Ipthama, at 12:15 this afternoon. I don't know how long I'll be in the air, don't know when I'll land, and I definitely don't know if I'm going to work tonight. My mom has to call C.W. and tell them I'm still in Philly.

And since my stomach is making noises, I'm going to feed it. And I don't care if it's white bread.

Still no idea WTF my luggage is.

Did I mention that I can throw a stone and hit the stadium of the Philadelphia Phillies?