Snow

I walked out into the snow, your head in your hands.
An unspoken truth about tomorrow's drowning, droning, moaning.
It was cold in your rigid grasp--the infinite pull back to safety.
You left your shoes on the porch and took the brave man's march across powder white flooring--
tearing at your sleeves, blaming, cursing, and adoring.
Where were you that time I froze to death and swallowed the light?
A tight rope walker's worst nightmare come true as I fell into the ice-chilled night.
I wanted you to follow, the white on white backdrop seized me in full, but you shirked away and hindered my soulful call.
Downward lifting, a quiet chorus hums behind the wall.
Let me walk out into the snow to find you, twenty phalanges gone black--
I think they'll all be gone by the time you come back.
To hobble, to stumble, to trip, and to fall--
I'd travel a great deal for you into the unknown.
Scramble and hunt for you out in the snow.

I Live

I cannot wait for the rest of my life. I have this inexplicable feeling in my gut that both keeps me up at night and comforts me when I begin to give up. It's the possibilities, the inspiration, the sheer need to live on. I find myself worried about money, fussing with finances, and crying over community college. The truth is, that  I have so far to go, so many things that I haven't even comprehended yet (good and bad). I can't wait to tip-toe around my own apartment in my socks, on the phone with someone special, while nibbling on the end of a chocolate bar. I can't wait to wake up in the morning and briskly jog down the steps and out into the city air, heading to my job. (whatever it may be) I can't wait for a friend to call me up asking if I'd like to join her and a group of friends at a local bar for some martinis and loud music.
Of course, wanting to rush off to these things will also bring the bills, the payments, the expenses, that my mother once handled. I've said before that I'm slowly easing myself into these things. Perhaps, I will trade my car in for a street-bike, and my unlimited texting into 500 a month. Perhaps the pasta dinners will dwindle to starbursts and chicken soup, but how exciting is that? How exciting to not know for once! To not wake up and say: "okay, I'll have my protein shake and head off to school, then I'll come home for lunch and do some homework" How exciting to go to the laundry mat and explore the city while waiting for the quarters to run out, to sit up at night and watch an old black and white film, and to not know if your bank account will sustain for the last payment. How exciting to lay next to another warm body, arm slung around waist. To feel the scruff of his unshaven morning face and to only be certain that he will be there when you come home from wherever the day leads you. To share, to love, to explore, to find, to worry, to know, to not know, to exaggerate, to live. I look forward to it all. It may scare me sometimes, but for the most part the thing that drives me through the day is the thought of living.

Rooms

There are rooms along the inside if the music hall. Tiny rooms that fit probably two or three...and a piano. I haven't counted how many there are, I just walk along side them every tuesday and thursday on my way to the band room for Music 101. There are usually people playing little diddles that are vaguely audible through the closed doors. My music teacher told us we were aloud to play in the rooms if we ever felt the need to or if we thought it would help us with homework. I've found that I'm quite...slow when it comes to writing notes (assignments we're given), but I think I'll go in and play before class starts from now on. It's a way of relaxation and brings an indescribably calm over me. These little hallway rooms with the pianos may just become exactly what I've needed.

To Bake

If you mix 17oz. of flour with 18 oz of brown/white sugar, two eggs, vanilla, baking soda/powder together with some chocolate chips, you get cookie dough. Baking is the only perfect thing that I can do (cuz remember...nobody's perfect right!) I know that when I add the dry ingredients with the sugars and butter, they will blend beautifully to make a sugary buttery tan dough. I know that when I make them into golf ball size molds, they will flatten out into a warm chocolatey disk. These are the things I know, these are the things  I love.

I had chocolate chip cookies for dinner tonight. In a state of frustration and anger (my neighbor stole my parking spot, I got cut in line by two punks, my nephew peed on the floor...and I stepped in it, etc...) I baked a batch of warm chocolate chip cookies and the world was at rest again.

Memory Board

This is my "memory wall". I stare at it more frequently than I sometimes realize, but today it dawned on me how relevant it is. Really, most of it is kinda an accident: I'd get too lazy or too sentimental to throw things away so I'd pin them up here. (mostly too sentimental). Let's discuss:
It's dominated mostly by ticket stubs (concerts: Local Natives, Paramore. Movies: Harry Potter 7, Eclipse **midnight premieres) Then, there are picture slides of me and Angie from when we were obsessed with collecting photo booth strips, and a gold heart with Kermit is royally pinned above a Korean photo booth strip of my very best friends. Between these things are two large "Happy Birthday" buttons from Disneyland (one used in a lie to get stacks of free warm tortillas). I have a "truth" sticker with Boys Lie prominently written in bold and a couple of fortunes. Then, there's the sticker of the naked lady which is probably my favorite thing on my memory board. A wristband from the Hollywood Music box hangs limp and warn above her and to the right of that: a life-saving postcard from San Francisco. I'm steadily finding out that I had an odd fixation with pig figurines (lined along the bottom) Not just any pigs though: a mariachi pig, a sexy posing pig, and a generic glass pig. And yes, that is a winking biscuit key chain on the bottom left: apparently I found that it was reasonably priced at only $6.50...
Sometimes the memory board is all I need to anchor me to the floor, one look before passing out or gazing at it, my eyes drifting thoughtfully over all makes it easier to prove that I've been living all along. ;) It's never coming down.

I Got 99 Problems, but I Shouldn't Bitch So Much.

Despite all my bitching recently: I'm doing fine. I have this great excitement for finishing and making it to the place that I've wanted to be for some time now. I like walking around before my night class. There's this section of...pine trees? That with their smell and feel remind me of a park my grandparents used to bring me to. It's so quiet in that section of the campus during night classes and all that's left is the heat from the relentless beaming of the sun from the afternoon hours. I like the enthusiasm of my psych teacher and how she constantly states that some of the theories/ideas we'll learn will seem like complete bullshit, but to keep an open mind anyway. She always wears brightly colored shirts and has really short/really cute red hair. I like how my music teacher (though not a great teacher) reminds me of Chunk from The Goonies if he were a 45 year old woman. (she talks exactly like him!) I kinda like the alone time I get between classes in the quiet hallway outside of the matriculation office. I feel like an animal, crawled under a rock for the sole purpose of finding a cool spot to relax. I like how everyone wears sunglasses (in high school, either you wore them and were looked at as "too cool for school" or you let the sun molest your eyeballs) Sometimes I secretly admire the people reading books underneath the trees (they seem like my types) and wish that it wasn't so hot so I could do the same without steeping in my own body heat. So you see? It's really not all that bad. I also discovered a make-shift coffee shop outside of my Biological Anthropology class where  boy in thick black-rimmed glasses serves everything a starbucks would in his little coffee hut. It'll be okay. Sometimes I have sporadic moments of tears in my room as I do my homework because I'm afraid of what won't happen (good grades? enough credits? friends? boyfriend? etc...), but I often  forget to look at what's already happening: I'm two years from potentially moving out on my own and going to a "real college" and that somehow, compared to 4 years in high school, 2 years in this place won't be so bad. Also the fact that I have really real friends all over the place. I'll be fine. I just gotta remember to be thankful for something every day (at least that's what someone awesome told me to do.) ;) Adieu.

Sincerity

I talked with a girl yesterday in my Biological Anthropology class who introduced herself right away. She turned swiftly to me and shook my hand, which startled me at first because no one had done this yet. I introduced myself and she said that we should become friends to fill any awkward space between us. As I listened to her talk, she spoke of how four boys had rushed to give her their numbers this week (it was Wednesday yesterday...the third day of the semester) and I realized I was only pretending to really hear what she said, I was only pretending to care about all the attention she was getting from the opposite sex, and it made me sad. I wanted to let a genuine smile flash across my face and nod in agreement that "she's not a slut, she's just being sociable and having fun in college" (which is what I actually said to her). We walked through the hallway during break and she talked about loving the fact that she knew no one and could start fresh and introduce herself to strangers. How I wish I possessed that quality. The point is that i really couldn't get into a sincere place with her. I find it hard to listen when people seriously talk about all the male attention they're getting and how everything is such a breeze. I sat in the back of the room because I'm shy, she sat in the back of the room so she can text. Everyone is too caught up in the superficial, the feeling of making "friends" is not so real and it's becoming a daily goal for me to get in and get out. Learn and go home, which is unfortunate, but how can I do anything else when that's what most people are doing?  I'm looking at 2.5 years here and I'm thinking that I might lose my mind. I do blame myself really, for not being able to open up and try to care about what things the girl next to me, or the boy in class is saying. It's just wagging tongues to me and I wish I cared, but I'm on a hunt for sincerity and not mindless conversation. I'd like for someone to ask me something intelligent or to give a shit about plans instead of giving the programmed answers that spill over my lips and their lips as we pretend that we're getting to know each other in order to fill the "awkward space" between us.

I Had a Dream...

I had a dream last night that caused me to wake up in a flurry of frustration.

I was searching for my departure gate from wherever I was with my mom. It was snowy there and the airport was somewhat gloomy, but bustling with workers trying to get things ready to open (guess I got in real early?) We were searching in a hurry, and I know I was looking for the departure gate to Boston, which came as a surprise to me after I woke up. Anyways, we couldn't find the gate and eventually approached a woman who looked official and who promised to help us find it. From what I understand, my plane was to leave at 11:30 a.m. and by the time we had asked another for help, it was 11:27 a.m. So, this woman began to swiftly take us in what she thought was the right direction, but kept stopping along the way to chat with fellow workers or pile things into what looked like a mail cart. Both my mother and i urged her to hurry up as it was now 11:28 a.m. We then boarded an elevator with doors that seemed to only open for a split second before slamming shut again. I held the door for the woman who boarded before the doors shut on my mom and the elevator began skyrocketing upwards to an unknown destination. I began to feel like crying and pulled my phone out to text my mom and apology and to say goodbye (she was not going to Boston with me). The woman tried to make me feel better by saying things like "aw honey" and "don't cry". It didn't work and we reached another floor that served as a restaurant and had many staircases in it. I ran up the first set of stairs where there were electronic beings performing on ques, the remake of a murder scene. A decapitated (robot) head was on the top step and a man robot peaked from behind a door (so you could assume he was the murderer.) Anyways, we ran up the other staircase and found nothing. My gate was nowhere to be found and at that point I assumed it was too late. I asked the woman if there was a cart that could pick us up and take us to the correct location and she thought that was brilliant. She looked out a window (which looked suddenly like my upstairs bathroom) and said that there were two carts down on the street (which looked like my street) There was a white taxi looking van and a mail truck. In my head I immediately eliminated the mail truck and started yelling down to the taxi driver who frustratedly shooed me away and looked very upset. Suddenly a woman ran up to the taxi and switched seats with him and an altercation began. They began yelling and screaming. (I figured it was like she was taking over his job and he was none too happy about it.) She kept angrily saying that she was sorry, and then got in and drove away. I woke up. I woke up, inhaling a swift and exasperated breath that made me shake my head and put my hands over my eyes. I wanted to cry, I felt bad for my mother who got left behind, and angry that I couldn't get on my flight because of that stupid and incompetent woman. I realized it was a dream and found it extremely difficult to get out of bed. I was disappointed and disheartened. Needless to say, I bought my mom a coffee this morning still feeling guilty that I hadn't gone back for her...she just thought I was being an awesome daughter. I never realized anything strange had happened until I had woken up. I don't know exactly what it means, but I always like to try and decode my dreams, especially when they're as vivid as this one. I feel like it means that I'm chasing after some unknown thing that no one else can help me find. It's something that I'll have to figure out on my own, and how to get to it. It exemplified my need to have more patience and to always feel empathy for those around me (rep. my mom)
I'm just glad I woke up.

Ode to Familiarity

I'm not lovin' it like McDonalds. I miss my friends like crazy and find it hard to relate to others. I know, I know, it's only been one day, but it feels and looks just like high school. The people are the same, I feel like there's 4 types of people out there and I can pinpoint any of those types from a distance. Girls: short shorts, long hair, sandals, american eagle top. Boys: long white socks, man-shorts, baseball cap, and ray bans. I guess I thought I could mask the identity of my college, I could put a ribbon on it and make it shine, walk through the doors and meet interesting people. People with good stories, kind faces, and not the dull expression of another day. I'm afraid of that expression, afraid when I see traces of it in the mirror, afraid that attending this community college for two years will compress it into my features. I miss my friends. I wish they'd make me laugh and feel comfortable in the back of the classroom. This awful bitchy girl sits in front of me and a stoner next to her. All the faces read the same today: gahh another year No one is capturing me. I guess that's the kind of girl I am, I need to be captured by people in order to chase away the stasis of "the everyday". A guy pushing "Chase" bank on students in the quad said that the good thing about Saddleback is that you're in and you're out without any need for social interaction. He actually said that,  that's when I wanted to run from him. I need the stimulation of a good conversation with familiar people, but it seems no one will want to get too familiar here. I have specific goals I must succeed, so I suppose I will marry my education for right now and wait until my  friends come home. Come home soon guys. <3

Ay Dios Mio

Okay, yeah. I'm freaking out a bit this morning. There's so many things that could potentially go wrong and so many things to do that it's making my head swell. It's quite possible that I'm in the wrong math class (no big deal huh?) except for the fact that changing it could mess up my entire schedule (including my work schedule) and not changing it could lead to consequences down the road, like...not being able to move forward, because I didn't take the lower class before taking this one, therefore, I'd be swiftly moving backwards into a three-year plan at Saddleback. I'm so confused. That was the good thing about high school, they'd notify you about EVERYTHING, and I'm coming to find that this is not the case with college. ID card whaaaat??? Counseling appointments made over the phone WhaaaAaaT???? Math classes that could go terrible terribly wrong and essentially ruin my life WHAAAAAT????!!!! Yeah.
Those things have got me all frazzled without having to think about setting up my scholarship "bank account" if you will, with the financial office, which I'm worried about for no reason, and really just the pure and simple fact that I have two online schedules that look the same, all aside from the fact that they both dispel completely different time frames for my classes. Who knows?? I could be in psych between 12 and 2 or anthropology between 3 and 5:50!! Holy shit balls. I'm going mad. I have to "petition" for a new math class today. I didn't even know what that meant until about three minutes ago. So I'll be "petitioning" on my first day. So you see how yesterday's post is not so...relevant anymore? I am trippin' balls at this very moment. So much shit to do on the first day to make sure the rest of my time here goes smoothly. Give me strength.

Bliss

Tomorrow is the first day I dance alone for the first time in a long time. Preparation has included cleaning my room ( I can see my floor again!), shopping, and trying to find the right attitude to approach it all with. Over a sophisticated breakfast of Life cereal (ironic isn't it?), I watched the movie  "Whip It", which has this weird hold on me. I've seen it 8,000 times, yet every time I watch it, I re-fall in love with Ellen Page's character Bliss. When first my friend and I saw the movie in theaters, we found eerie similarities between ourselves and the main characters Bliss and Patch. I look similar to Patch and she to Bliss, but with opposing personalities. Point is, I want to become more like Bliss. She's sarcastic yet endearing and doesn't really give a shit about what people may or may not think about her. It's like she knows who she is, what she's about, and what's important to her. The big thing with me is that i care too much what strangers think about me. I care about what the girl across the classroom is thinking about my hair or the boy in the back of the room about my body. Was my answer stupid? Did I say the wrong thing? Dumb question? I'd like to go into college as a different version of myself. Confident that I am really only there to get on with my life, only there to obtain the credits I need to start my engines, and perhaps to meet some influential people. Mostly, I'm wanting to just be me and stop trying to please every person with one of my many made up versions of myself. I've created the "family" version, "friends" version, "school" version, "work" version, and "trying-to-attract-that-cutie-sitting-across-the-room" version. It's too many, you see. My goal for this year is to compile all of those versions of myself (giving and taking along the way), to become the best possible version of myself, which is in fact very similar to Bliss. I have a feeling I won't be able to sleep tonight and that I'll trip balls all the way up the freeway to school tomorrow, but it's the first chapter of a new story and I'm gonna take it on with all of me in stride.

Not the New Kid

When it all comes spiraling forward, sweeping you up in a massive twirling suction and you find yourself at square one, you must remember one thing: you are not the new kid. You are not the kid that everyone in class turns to look at when you walk in the door for the first time, and you are not that person who eats peanut butter and jelly in a bathroom stall. You are the person who is loved by more people than you can count and those very people, cancel out any negativity or lonesomeness emanated by those around you or through yourself. Sometimes we notice the worst in something new because otherwise we'd have to accept the unacceptable. We'd have to adjust despite undeclared stubbornness. We're scared.  I'm terrified by the thought of starting over on Monday at a new place with strange people. New teachers, classrooms, classmates, curriculum, etc...but because I know that now, I have people in different states who love me, people who need me as much as I need them, I'll find comfort whilst wandering around alone for the first few weeks or months.  It doesn't matter that I'm still home, because home will never really be home without those people who are too far to touch, play, laugh, and argue with. But we must adjust, adapt, and declare our commitment to live no matter where we're placed. Live each day before it slips into the unchangeable void of life. It's a new nest, a new experience that will pass as the days do, so hold to it while you can, live it. My friends who have left/are leaving, they're already doctors, they already have their P.h.D's, they are already famous because of what they mean to me. Being alone has to become a choice from now on, we're not meant to wander alone unless we choose to. It'll be hard for me to lower the walls and redirect the cannons, but in all honesty, I too need to adapt to what's uncomfortable. I'm not a people person at all, I'd prefer to be in the peaceful alone to avoid being hurt, but getting hurt means you cared. I won't stop trying if you won't.

More Power To Ya'

Maybe
I'll  
have more thoughts tomorrow.

Not Goodbye, It's See You Later

I don't want to realize it when it's gone. I want to reach out and trace it back two years, a month, a day. I want it all back because, like an idiot, I assumed it'd go on for as long as I willed it to. I cried on the way home, I let the lump in my throat swell like a bruised limb and the fat tears rolled. It's too late to say that I miss it all, because I've missed everything all along. I've missed the moments that I knew would pass by in a matter of hours at the very moment they were occurring. I was always just hoping that somehow we'd be able to stop and fast forward all at the same time so that this gap would cement itself up before it got the chance to widen. I'm really going to miss these specific feelings that come with feeling whole and perfect all the time. Not in myself, but in the knowledge that everything around me, my friends, were whole and perfect just as they were strange and uncouth. That last hug goodbye sent a fleeting signal to my brain that it's not camp that is taking them away, but reality. They won't come back with great stories about ghosts and incinerated marshmallows, but with really great stories about their lives. We did get to sit around the table for the last time,but I couldn't hear the voices, I just thought about the faces. I thought about trying to compress their features into my memory so that when I feel the earth's crushing weight, I can pull these kind faces up and return the world to my equilibrium. I cry not only because it's hard to let go, but because it's hard to move on. It'll be hard to wake up to something new and even harder to begin college with such an upset to the wholesome circle of friends that has completed me in more ways than I can say. The only comfort I grasp is that we'll always be friends, as corny as it sounds. Sometimes you just have those gut feelings, and while I can't say what will happen in the meantime, I can say that in the long run, we'll stay together. We've made it this far...what's a couple of states? Thanks for changing my life my loves. <3 Go get 'em.

Swallow

I avoid driving all the way down the freeway to my rightful exit now. That exit is like a slide that is swallowed by the mouth of this city. It leads to the center by the Denny's and the gas station. I've always had inexplicable feelings towards that exit, and now that I've been elsewhere and back, I know why I've hated it all these years and why now I unconsciously avoid it. It leads me smack dab in the middle of this tiny speck that is made up of a mere 18.45 miles of pure...unoriginality. Every third house is modeled the same in my neighborhood, there's one of each type of public school, a few churches, and the ever present beach territory. It all makes out one circular net, encompassing 68,000 people. I praise this city on the notion that it was safe and good to me as I grew up and because I am aware of the unfortunate situations of others who live in shanty towns, and mud huts, or nowhere at all. But this is me, these are my spoken feelings that if I kept bottled up, would bloat me inside out until I exploded. Today, as I drove down the free-flowing freeway, no traffic (unusual for my after work drive), I still got off one exit early just to avoid that swallowed up slide. It's like deja vu every day here, same things, same feel, and everyone locks up by 8:00 p.m. This town is wound up and exhausted all at the same time. I was taught to breath again in the big city, and now I must swallow up all the air I can in my chest until further notice.

While She Was Away...(A poem that came in sleep)

While she was away, she missed the man bending spoons with his mind.

In an instant case of evaporation, her presence was down-trodden and left behind.

She woke up dreary and unperturbed by the numbness that threaded its way around her--

For weeks she awaited her elaborate goodbye, unrequited yet unsure.

While she was away, she missed the burning of a letter

Seven years of promises in black ink, promising that things would get better. 

Acrylic odor filled her lungs, the smell of lost words sent to the wind.

Her very best fear was to be going everywhere with nowhere to begin--

She was the master of losing everything except her temper at the worst of times.

While she was away, her job was given away

Five ladies in the lineup, only one got to play.

A neighbor called over through the midnight sky--

afraid this girl lay silent and hardened waiting for her body to die.

While she was away, the boy of her dreams took a train

One ticket to pleading and guilty of going insane

He blew a kiss to the wind without seeing her face,

It picked up speed, drew steam, and was gone with haste.

While she was away, she couldn't sleep ever a night she tried

A dimmed lampshade, quiet sigh, fingers tied--she waits.

Like an empty shell, she rocks inside of herself

three times a day she goes off to worry about her plight.

Several restless hours, she wastes wandering the brisk and airy night.

Lover

I have small moments of wanting to cry ever since i realized that I must step into reality again and deal with things that I got to leave behind while away. I have to deal with friends leaving in a week for college, I have to deal with the stress of going to college myself, the stress of bills/payments, work, and readjusting to my responsibilities. It wasn't just a trip, it was a step out of reality, out of our lives and into the future. Someday we will be on our own and with friends, wandering our new hometowns and scrounging for money. I yearn for the moment when I'll be on my own, i will it to formulate itself sooner rather than later. Going back to work today, I feel further from the carefree city that revived my sagging soul. Paying $350 for four textbooks, I feel bitter about the idea of money and how it actually does make the world go round. I hope this dreary feeling passes, oh San Francisco, like a lover that visits only once a year. I regret knowing you, but I will never stop hoping for and loving you. I will never stop hoping for the love of life. When my friends leave, I will not look for replacements, but I will try my best to fill the gaps they leave as they board their planes to other worlds. I will remain here and hold down the fort, try to keep my chin above water as this island sinks around me.

Packed Away

The emptiness of the morning hangs with gray hindrance-

It speeds up time in its slow austere, like sand in an hourglass.

I won’t let go, the cramped space of a common goal.

I won’t let go, your idle company keeps me awake like a heavy pill.

I’d rather wake in the strangeness of that room than the familiarity that brings morning gloom

I won’t let go.

I find it funny, what will come to a woman in a few short days-

The kinds of things that have plagued her bricked-up mind for nearly two decades.

The life that lives in spacious poverty, one that waltzes with the city.

I won’t let go, the sight of it packed in a box makes me shutter like waiting for a bus in the fog.

I won’t let go, you can’t take it with you when everything you own weighs on you more than love.

There is only so much we can hold in the captured frozen stills of our time, but as for the rest we keep not in boxes, but in the breathing structures of heart and mind

I won’t let go.

I did, I left my heart in San Francisco

It takes getting away from home to see the beauty in other potential homes. San Francisco is my barbie dream house, the whole thing. I take it for the good and the bad, but mostly the good. It's so much more than anything I've ever experienced, because it's alive, it inspires me while keeping me grounded. Sharing a small space with three other girls for four days has now become my dearest memory, and I only just got home today. Somehow we managed to go where we wanted even when we shouldn't have been in certain places (one wrong turn there, and you could be in trouble.) We took taxi cabs, drank midnight milkshakes, shopped, ranted, flirted, ran, spent, and found the more important things in each other. I always thought that the kind of love I've been looking for would be found in a man, but I was wrong. I found a different, yet just as passionate type of love in San Francisco. There's more going on in the daytime than I've seen go on in a day here in San Clemente, and at night, there's ten times that activity. People are performing on the street for quarters, dressing up, and making a living off of living. I guess that's really what draws me in, people are living there. I find that many wile away their time trying to work towards a living, when what they really need to do is just stop and let themselves experience life without the expectation of getting a level higher or a step above. A homeless man was completely contented in hiding behind a bush and playfully scaring pedestrians in front of slyly gathered crowds. He was laughing and interacting with people, which is more than I can say about a lot of people who actually believe that they are formulating some kind of life off of economic success. It's so beautiful there. We hailed taxis with great success once we spotted them, excitedly jogging to them in the middle of busy intersections, and we kept our cool when suspicious characters whistled, mumbled, and stalked behind us. The thrill of the city, the thrill of driving crookedly through crowded streets, pulling together what funds we had for fare and food, and staying up too late to learn things about each other. There's a magnetic pull that tells me that I wouldn't just enjoy the city for a four day span of time, that I'd need my closest friends there to walk besides me, no, it tells me that I belong in the hustle bustle of the foggy layout. I could watch the sea lions forever, I could walk the wharf for hours, find a coffee shop to study at, and play music in the park. I could. An eight hour drive seems like nothing when it leads to the living.

horn call

I'm not sure which I found weirder: the fact that someone left their shoe horn in their booth at work today or the fact that I fell in like with a voice over the telephone. I can't really explain the shoe horn thing because really? You brought your shoe horn into a diner and left it there after taking it from your man purse to show it off to your blind date who didn't actually believe that this guy, this guy right here, had brought his shoe horn on a first date. That's just my imagination, like I said, I can't give a truthful reason to it's existence in the setting. As for the second thing, well, some guy had left his wallet and thus it was placed in our lovely and totally put together lost and found. (to be truthful, if you leave your cool shit there for more than...a week, please expect to see a young woman strutting around in your black pea coat or purple ray bans, just sayin'.) Anyways, I answered the phone in my usual hokey way to hear an exasperated voice trying to explain his dilemma. I let him go on despite the fact that I knew after the word wallet came out of his mouth that we had it. ;) SO, I surprised this guy's life and explained that we had it. He was totally jizzed on this, so much so that he went on to tell me how worried he'd been and he'd been looking for it everywhere etc...etc.. I sounded like I had killer bees in my pants and needed to hang up the phone now to extricate said bees, but I'm not sure why. His voice was spry and soothing at the same time. He sounded young and friendlier than all the people who had come in for breakfast and lunch put together. I get pretty nervous around guys and tend to come off as if I'm too busy to talk or act like I've been pulled out of the wintry Atlantic ocean, shivering and suffering from loss of the ability to form words. Call me creepy, but after I hung up with this grateful person, I wished that we had been having a conversation about something other than his lost wallet, like he actually called to talk to me and not in the desperation to find his leather cradle that held a golden card and $20. (yeah I looked through it prior to the call). I'm making myself out to be a terrible worker aren't I? I'd like to clear the air: I have never stolen from the lost and found, even when I found a really cool pair of black rimmed glasses. One of the other girls claimed them first. So yeah, I was cut before I got a chance to see this guy and return him his wallet in person. Guess it doesn't really matter and I probably would be disappointed by the person behind the phone. For all I know he could be 40 years old with a porno mustache, so I think I'll hold to the friendly voice on the other end of the line.

Blood

If there's one thing about a movie that gets me inspired, it's the soundtrack. Crazy, Stupid, Love did it right in all areas (humor, romance,drama, sexiness, chemistry etc...) including the soundtrack. Sure, not all the songs were put out this year specifically for this film, but that's kinda why I loved it. The musical directors utilized songs for their meanings and relevance to the film/moments instead of calling T. Pain and asking for a sexy song that Emma Stone could strut into the bar to. Because i didn't want to lay down $10.99 for the entire soundtrack (although if you have that much on you...do it), I got just two of the songs that captured my interest, already having "Tenuousness" by Andrew Bird. (end credits.) Above is "Blood" by The Middle East. It's glorious. If you follow Bon Iver, then I think you'll find a hint of his genius in here through the quiet mist of voices and tinkling instrumentals. You know how sometimes you'll see a movie and fall in love with the songs so you go and buy it when you get home only to find out that it doesn't present itself the same way? Well, even though that is not the case here (just listen to it!), I often fall in love with a moment in a movie that is brought to life and sends shivers up my spine through the perfectly perfect music put to it. Crazy, Stupid, Love is full of those perfect 10 moments that every girl AND boy wishes for with music that makes each moment count that much more. All I know is when I get to lay in bed next to Ryan Gosling, I'll ask him to please put "Blood" by The Middle East on while we talk...or don't talk if you catch my drift. And yes, I plan on getting the chance to lay next to him in bed, seeing as we're getting married someday...that is if the whole Prince Harry thing doesn't work out. Enjoy guys!

i date a boy named Francisco

things are picking up with great pace and I'm completely unperturbed by their speed. i'll hop in a car with some of the greatest ladies this generation has seen and drive into the unknown (at least it's unknown to me.) What is this mysterious place you ask? San. Francisco. Yes, that day is a'comin' swiftly and with tangible force.We got our shit together finally after severaly "lap top sessions" at Panera and not before losing our minds to frustration and confusion. The word of the day, non,of the week, is YES.   Why San Francisco? I'll tell you kind reader, San Francisco has a certain voice that once heard by the adventurous ear cannot be denied. It's, and I quote one of my generational ladies "the best city in California." I guess the characteristics of the destination is up to the traveler, but with the statement, I can only agree whole-heartedly. It's the long stretches of road that gather the momentum that sends us hurdling forward and ending up exactly where we want to be. I'd follow them anywhere, but it just so happens that our calling was the same and we all heard the fog horns of San Francisco in the distance. To you, my dear readers, I say whenever you get the chance to take a roadtrip, jump at the chance and chomp at the bit, even if it's just down the road a couple of hours. There's no better way to tell who you'd spend the rest of your days with than surviving a long journey in the car with them. I look forward to it with every ounce of being and will document the trip with Nixon my Nikon. Stay tuned!

Shark Week

I had a dream that I was attacked by a shark. It ripped my back open, but I didn't feel the pain of it and in fact, I went to some undisclosed museum on my way to the hospital. I kept telling everyone that I was dizzy and getting progressively tired (due to blood loss), but they were unconcerned, and convinced that there was ample time for a visit to the museum. It looked kinda  like the Getty, but I don't remember anything special about it. It's probably because I was concerned about bleeding to death and that I had a terrible back wound. According to http://www.myjellybean.com/dream-dictionary/dream-dictionary-shadow-ship sharks in dreams represent a cold or greedy person, but can also mean that you are angry with yourself or others. In this case, I'd say that it's because it's "Shark Week" and my t.v. time consists of being terrified of the information about the closer-than-ever shark encounters being displayed on t.v.
There was a really beautiful dolphin that failed to save me from the initial attack, but followed me to shore and just stared at me underwater through it's black bean of an eye. I could somehow breath underwater I guess, but I was surprised it didn't try to save me, it just stared cold at me. Again, this is derived from shark talk and such, but the dolphins (if they do show up) try to save the victim due to  empathetic instinct. I heard once, an interesting statement about dreaming. That we don't realize anything strange is going on until after the fact (we wake), but that while we're dreaming, everything is perfectly normal and there is no questioning situational experiences. Hence, my very inconvenient trip to the museum. Cool huh?