Roads to Take

Or not to take, as the case may be.

It was a really difficult decision, one that I really didn't think about otherwise I would have waffled back and forth for, well, days, and in the end, it's really for the best, hard as it is to see that now.

On the subject of whether to apply for the writing class to be held by our sort of writer in residence, I've decided not to. Even apply, that is.

Writing is something that is so ingrained in me, it's really hard to separate the two. It's not like acting, where there's the actor me or with playing soccer, where there's this person on the field that has my body, but does things with it that, if I were probably thinking about them in any other context, I'm not sure I'd do. Things like slide-tackling a girl from behind in my own penalty box, or going head to head (almost literally) with an attacking player. This isn't like that. The Louise and writing are two very intricate, almost completely combined things.

The reason I'm not even going to apply is because I don't think I have the strength to be accepted and not actually rearrange things and take the class. I don't think I'm strong enough to just take the fact that I was accepted and go with that. For me, right now, it's better to not even apply and wonder whether I would have made it or not, rather than apply, get accepted, and force myself do not do anything about it.

This was not an easy decision, but one of those that you make and then, maybe a few years later, think...what if?

Lifetimes

Sometimes it feels like I've had more than one life in twenty-one years. Like, if you were to track me through the tail end of high school up until now, you could easily see where one part of me left off and the other started. It's a little harder to see what brought me here, the stuff that's on the inside and doesn't see the light of day except in extreme circumstances. It's hard to see the bad stuff because there doesn't seem to be a camera present when it all goes down the tubes. Why? Mostly because it's not a pretty picture. No pun intended.



Maybe it's because I realized this morning was the last morning I was going to register for fall undergraduate courses, and, well, that's got me more than a little freaked out and tooling through a bit of memory lane. The stages of me, not the pieces, because the important pieces don't fall off anymore. They chip - sometimes really easily - but they don't actually come off anymore.



I might have learned how to bend a little easier, instead of outright fracturing. Or I might have just morphed into stronger stuff. I don't know. And if I don't know, you people must not have a clue.



What I do know is that I can see the journey - the part of the journey - I've taken. I can the see the ways I've changed, both physically and in the ways that aren't so obvious.



Looking back might be a way to look ahead, too. I don't know where I'm goin', but I know where I come from, and I'm just fine with knowing only that. As for the rest of it? Well, I'll deal with it as it comes. One day at a time.

Tomorrows

It's the first full week in April. This morning was registration and I don't think there has ever been, in my three years here, a registration that went as smoothly as that.

When you sit at the top of the stack it makes things a little easier.

As of this morning I was content with my schedule. I'm still content with it, as there's not much moving around that I can do with four classes and three labs. Not much moving around that I really wanted to do, truthfully. Fall semester is going to be a tad bit difficult as it is.

And this was before I found out about the workshop from our "writer in residence" type of person where it's an apply and get chosen type of thing. Apparently he's a very good fiction writer. As I've spent the past six years of my life working on a novel, and without becoming egotistical, I think I'm pretty decent fiction writer. This would be a very good thing for me to do. It would be a small class - only fifteen students or so - and the guy teaching would be picking a smaller number of students from that class to continue to work with him in the spring semester.

I don't know what to do. This would be a fifth official class, not to mention that I would have my last education seminar in the fall, and it would also be the first time with me at the helm of martini.

This is one of those occasions when my own sanity comes into conflict with the philosophy of maybe twenty years down the line regretting doing, instead of not doing.

What really scares me? I'm running out of tomorrows. Tomorrows and second chances and starting to put an end date, a number, on my days. And when you realize that, it becomes almost overwhelmingly terrifying.

I can either rearrange my labs (it's possible) and leave my Tuesday afternoons free for this writing class, or I can not apply to it, not take it, and leave everything as is. I don't know what to do and I'm scared of the doing the wrong thing.

Just...tell me I'm not the only one in this position. That would make me feel a tad bit better about the whole damn thing.

Things to Know XX

- A 2 am bed time is only advisable once a week.

- The crater holes where I had my wisdom teeth removed are still incredibly sore.

- This was evidenced when I got knocked in the jaw last night at rehearsal - nobody's fault - and made everything hurt.

- Geo lab tomorrow takes place more or less in my backyard.

- I sat through a class and a half feeling like my head wasn't functioning.

- Spent four hours (roughly) with no contacts or glasses due to a contact lens malfunction and knowing that wearing only one would produce a hell of a headache within twenty minutes.

- Watching DVD's of Law and Order: UK off of Netflix helps me pretend I'm still in the UK.

- I have a place to live next year - in a house - and get to pick my room on Tuesday.

- There's a project that's going to allow me to look at the quantum mechanics of a black hole.

- There may be a way to tie that back to either Star Trek 2009 or Stargate, of which I'm practically salivating over.

- There's a chance my mom, sister, and I will be able to make a sort of round trip to NYC to see the MLS All Stars take on Manchester United and then see RENT on Broadway.

- If we see RENT it will remind me of the last time we all went to see a musical together, which was The Lion King when I was still in elementary school.

- Sadly, though it would be really fun and a great experience, it's not going to be possible to do the Geo field course this summer (two weeks in Colorado) because it doesn't help for my major, and I would have to petition quite a few people to be able to take only three courses my senior Spring.

- I'm having mixed feelings about the fact that the theater department doesn't want me to take Intro to Dramatic Literature as an independent study (which would mean only three courses [all of them chem, with labs] in the fall) and want me to wait instead for next Spring and another dramatic lit course.

- I still have my ethics goal to fulfill.

- My adviser is quite happy that we're not struggling to fulfill the fine arts goal.

- I don't think I drink enough water in the day.

- I should make a cup of tea and get cozy on my bed doing homework.

- I have a card I'm going to send to my best friend in Rome.

- Speaking of said best friend, she'll be living across the street from me next year.

- One of these days, when it gets a little warmer, I'm going to lay on the grass, look at the sky, breathe, and simply be.

Virginia Company

It's sometimes fun to start at the end. This is what we did last week.


While I try and get my head around the asshattery that was the first Monday back after Spring Break - complete with more moments of brilliance in one day than the last month and a half - I'd figure I'd clue everyone in on where I've been for the past week.

I mentioned this a little earlier (sometime a couple weeks ago, I think) that I was spending my Spring Break doing community service in Virginia instead of becoming a couch potato at my own house.

It was pretty cool, truthfully. We accomplished a lot. I'm still kind of covered in latex paint and primer, got bit by a tick, cut up the backs of my hands a little on nails through surfaces as I was trying to paint, and, if you followed my twitter, you'd have probably seen that I was trying not to swear like a sailor and commit bodily harm to people I was with over downright damned annoying little things.

Either way I survived the week, did good service, and there were some pretty impressive, and interesting photos that more or less cropped out of it.



I am the headless "moonsuit" (used for painting, to preserve your clothes) on the left.




Chippin' paint and lookin'....woodsy. Or grungy. Either one works.

Oneness

This is the third time I've tried to write this post.

My varsity soccer coach my junior and senior year in high school told me those weren't the best days of my life, and not to let them be. That there were bigger and better things out there waiting for us to find them, experience them. He was right, for the most part, that high school wasn't the best days of my life.

What he wasn't right about was WAZA. A travel team I'd been playing on for four years. Those girls, since the first day, they were more than teammates, they were practically family. We were family, actually. After our first practice our coach had said, "Welcome to the WAZA family," and he never stopped saying it. It was drilled into us that if our sister was against the boards, you go help her. You give her support.

Those girls were one of the best things that have ever happened to me. One of the best groups of people that I have ever come to know.

Friday afternoon we lost a sister. She'd fought leukemia not once, but twice - and won - only to lose to a lung infection.

It's been four years since we last stepped on or off a soccer field together. Four years, but with this we've come back to the family we were once. And still are.

That is how we'll grieve. We'll grieve with our blood family, and the family we chose.

We'll grieve for our sister.

Almost Normal

This is a sort of Wordless Wednesday post in disguise.

It's been five days since I had all four wisdom teeth removed.

This was me Sunday afternoon.



Chubby Chubby Chipmunk, anyone?

And this is me five days later.



Still a chipmunk, but not now I don't look like I'm putting away food for winter.

I'm also beginning to turn pretty colors as the swelling goes down. I keep waiting for someone to ask me who hit me. And the looks at Wegman's while J and I had frozen coffee drinks and I ate mine with a spoon? Priceless.