oh, hi
I went shopping at Target for a wedding gift today, and I ended up getting them a breadbox. I thought hey I could put some other cute stuff in there, and it will be easy to wrap. So I get to the check out and the girl is trying to scan it and she says, "What is this thing," and I said, oh it is a bread box. And then she said:
"What is a bread box?" WHAT? Is that really a thing that people don't have bread boxes at their house? Has she never played 20 questions? Bigger than a breadbox? A blond white girl who has never heard of a bread box?
"You don't have one of these at your house?" I asked.
"No," she said, and just kept smiling. "Where do you open it?"
I showed her. "See, and you put your loaf there, and some bagels over here in this part."
"I have never heard of this," she says.
"Your friends don't have one either?" I asked. She shook her head, still grinning at me like I must be making the whole thing up.
"Well, I guess you don't need one," I said, walking away because I was starting to hold up the line, "But they are convenient, sort of." I guess all they really do is keep your bread hidden.

Funny.

It is strange to think I have only been back for a week. A good week though. Last Sunday I went to see Brandi Carlile with the ladies, and that show was just as amazing as the Tegan and Sara concert. And similarly, also made me want to cut off my hair, get tattoos, and be a lesbian rock star.

I worked a million hours, watched the 1st season of Dead Like Me, starting working out again, and one of the nights Celisse and Ten and I had a girls night and watched
a) The Bounty Hunter and
b) The Departed

Which I think is pretty hilarious considering the first is a chick flick, and the second is a bloody mafia movie with too many f-words to count.

I am trying to figure out what comes next, and the answers don't come to me no matter how many times I clean my room and turn on the Scentsy and make a night cap. My pillow is breaking my neck while I sleep.

But in general, things are going to turn out just fine.

Originally uploaded by maneeacc

Everytime I sit down to try and write something about this last visit to the midwest, I just start weeping. So instead I will just say what I've been learning.

I am learning to suck the love out of everywhere. To say out loud, "I am so happy I could die." To be more alert. To realize the happiest moments in my life, and acknowledge them silently to myself, and appreciate my loved ones.
Salt Lake City may be one of the loneliest places in the world, but there is still a lot of love.

I'll give you anything, but I'll give you problems

I used to get really worried at the end of dentist visits because they always would tell you not to eat or drink for 30 minutes after the fluoride. I would think, "Now what am I going to do?" And suddenly get really thirsty because I couldn't have water.
Now I wake up everyday and take a pill and can't eat for 30 minutes, and my inner child is saying, "This just isn't working for me." But its either that or serious pain, which is I suppose the only reason people take pills. Besides Sudaphed, which is candy coated.

Where have I been.

I spent 2 weeks in a vacuum of love and sunshine and heartbreak in the midwest. There aren't words to say what I think there. Its something about how I would give anything to smell the scent of my grandfather's cellar, or walk in itchy cornfields every summer for my life. I end up spending every moment trying to suck all the joy out of it. To try to memorize it.

We chase what is left
of her alive
from room to room.
The scent, the handwriting, and her
reflections in the mirrors.

QUOTES

"It's like, you could be a bum, and as long as you had intuitiveness and some fish, you would be the richest person in the world." -Nick, on living in Hawaii
(Thanks Ashleigh)

"We could leave them a comment like, "I've notice our waiter's hair is getting longer."" -Bryan, on comments/concern cards at SLPP a long time ago

"Ha ok, awesome! You'll notice after talking to my mom for 2 minutes she will need to know every single detail. Who where why what for who's that what's that smell is that guy dead gifts money slayer how much reservations DNA left handed ice cream oil change soap cake naps directions time zone what's that smell again can I bring a blanket what color shoes ect..." -also Bryan, via Text the week before their wedding

"I'm really disappointed in Paige Davis lately, her hair keeps getting shorter and shorter." -Philip, absentmindedly after an RC Willey commercial

Philip and I both realized we have this LOVE moment with Kelsey G. of when we tell her stories. You can always expect this moment when her eyes turn very wide and her mouth opens crazy, and she starts laughing really hard. It is ALWAYS rewarding to tell her a good story. I save them up to tell her.
She sort of understands the person I am, when I am a lunatic burnout, and she does crazy things with me.
I will miss her.
There are certain selfish parts of me that hope that Phoenix, AZ is a horrible place, and that she moves back and wants to hang out with me when she is older.

I am a very selfish person.

"Kelsey, how did you get that hat to stay on your head?"
"That is exactly what I am wondering!"
-a brief encounter, 11 months ago

When we were younger, there was a good 6 to 8 months that we ate these soybean patties for many meals a week. I don't know why we had so many of them.
We were poor.
We tried to come up with new ways to use the patties. Cutting them up and tried to disguise them in other foods, to add protein and stuff.

It's not like we're rich these days. But there are a lot of things I'm realizing now that I wish I could have told 14, 15, 16, 17 year old Rachel were going to happen, and the lessons I would learn. But I don't think it would have been worth it, if I didn't learn them for myself. What I'm saying is, I couldn't have foreseen the trips to California, and Mexico. The rich people I've spent time with, the sushi and cocktails, the dresses I've worn, the handsome men who've tried to convince me of...anything they wanted to convince me of. A lot of worthless worldly things, that are still good for experience-sake, but looked more glamorous during adolescence.

I wish I could tell my 21 year old self the values I will know by 25. But I think that is why I have awesome friends with good advice.

"Nick, what put that into your brain to put basil leaves in your beer?"
"I don't know."
"Did it fall into your beer?"
"Hey peanut butter wasn't invented on purpose."
-Stesha and Nick

"I'll try to be more romantic
I want to believe in everything you believe.
I was less than amazing,
Do not know what all the troubles are for.
Fall asleep in your branches:
You're the only thing I ever want anymore"
-Conversation 16, The National

High Violet reminds me so much of the old way I loved the National, and the way they use the choir in this song kills me. The choir always kills me.
"The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid" by The Decemberists
and "Downfall" by Matchbox 20. When I think of choirs of angels, I try to think more of these songs and spending eternity in that part of the song where the choir comes in and gives you chills.
I spent a lot of nights, weeping, on my way home from the comfortable arms of loved ones. Arms as in, sitting next to them and listening to the soft tone of their voices for hours, hearing what they're dreaming about. What I mean is weeping to Matt Berninger's voice, which I could never get tired of. To also screaming "Mr. November" from Alligator. Spent a lot of dark hours driving I-80 across the country under very few street lamps thinking about who I'll finally meet when I turn 29.

Tonight there was a man walking down my street, and I realized, tonight it is my turn not to be the pitied one, not to be the tragic one left to his thoughts and walking down a road. Some nights are not so hard, but the choir still haunts you anyway because you are hoping about heaven. You love all the bad men who have scarred you, because skin heals pretty decently and is a learning process; your biography. You love all the people who took you for granted. You even crack open a beer and toast to them, because we've all got a tragic flaw.

These Days

Well, I spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday basically in bed from allergies killing me. Besides that I went to work every time that I was supposed to, and church. And I moved to the couch one time to watch the LOST finale, which, hello. Super sad. But it's not like I didn't cry a lot through Alias.

I made some amazing waffles last night. They're called Liege waffles.

And man are they delicious. Celisse got me the pearl sugar to make them. They are a gut bomb, but worth it.

So in conclusion, every thing is pretty alright. The show will go on.

Thank you to the following sponsors:
NBC, Benedryl, NPR, Butter, Jo Malone Cologne, Netflix, Prevacid, Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers, and last but not least: Vitamin Water (Connect; cherry lime w/ caffeine) you are so good, it is my fault I overdosed.

"Oh my gosh!"
"What?"
"Oh...well you didn't watch American Idol last year."
"Oh yeah. That one girl's dead, huh?"
"WHAT?!"
"You know, Japanese...what...nevermind."
-Izzy, on a usual basis

There are people that are involved in my daily life, that I don't even ever really talk about. I am there for them everyday and I want to start profiling them so that I remember them when I leave Starbucks and never come back.

Handsome and Sweetie
He comes in and pays for her drink every morning before she wakes up. He works in construction, and is fun to joke around with. He drinks coffee even though he is LDS, which is something I like to see in a person.

Grumpy Old Guy
I don't know his name because he always pays very quickly, with cash, and always tips us almost as much as his drink costs. He is very pessimistic and grumpy which I really appreciate when it's early morning. He likes us, he likes talking to us, but always acts like he doesn't. I love him. I want him to be a third grandpa. I would sit around and smoke with him, even though he probably doesn't do that, and neither do I.

Chocolate Shavings Lady
Likes sprinkles on top of her mocha, even though they don't make a difference in the taste, and claims that she needs the coffee and chocolate because of medicine that she is on. Usually comes through 3 times during my shift, for a total of close to 1200 calories, probably, but never seems to put on weight. I think some people live off of Starbucks nutritionally.

Brian and Indy
Literally my favorite. Brian comes in with his dog Indy through the drive thru (also probably 3 times a day) and we probably are technically his third home. He's unmarried and has no kids, and we are always as happy to see him as he is to see us. He is always happy, and Indy always tries to jump through the window.

Okay. Now I need to go to bed.

You got tired, working on too many lives at once.
Working long days and longer nights on bad dreams.
You got to hold yourself together all the hours.
You got to admit that God this is it.
That you got to take a knee. Take a few hard hits where you aren't expecting it.
Shoulder, gut, hip, temple.
Put off the Tylenol til the last minute you can stand it.
Stop choking on hard everything.
Smoke.
Glamour.
Sir Jack Daniel.

Lay down the guns and know, God you said this would be hard.
And God, I will fight a good fight.

I will fight the good fight.

"I might have one drink tonight."
"Okay, but watch out. One drink turns into another, which turns into another, which turns into another. Pretty soon you're the drunk girl playing Ticket to Ride."
-Shannon, on mixing alcohol with board games

Sometimes Postsecret makes me happy.

I met someone.

She seems crazy, so I think there is a good spot for her in my life. She's a regular at Starbucks, and she matches my loud volume and excitement. We finally got the courage to say that we should start hanging out, and when I wrote my number on her passion tea, I got butterflies, which is really funny. Platonic butterflies, if that makes any sense.

It goes back to Kayleigh. I've been trying to replace the spot she had for a really long time. She was at the very least crazy; maybe even a maniac. She made me laugh so hard that it was really hard not to pee my pants. We took a lot of espresso in those days.
I tried to replace her with Emily, who is not all the way crazy, but really wonderful. She manages a pretty legit cover.
Kelsey G. was where my real hope came because she is young and something about growing up makes you stop laughing like a maniac. She makes me pretty happy.
And now there is new girl, and I will have to see how it pans out with her.

But basically Kayleigh, this is my last letter to you.

It has taken me a lot of people to equal your exuberance at 5:30 in the morning. I still don't know if I've found it yet, but I realize that we are now two ships in the night, and I have to get over you somehow.
So here's to the memories: I think of you fondly, but the picture is fading. You might even be settling into a semi-normal existence now, and I don't hold that against you.
Love,
Rache

Quotation, quotation
I really can't say all the drama I have been subjected to this week since coming back from San Clemente. It will all go away soon I hope, or get worse.
So, the only thing I have on my mind that is okay to talk about is the show Weeds, which is not actually appropriate to talk about either.
So here are some saved up quotes that I find funny, and are easier to think about than this week's real life.

"It's just like, they're normal mushrooms," cooking in the pan, "but they are freaking me out because they are going to be vegan."
-Celisse

"It'd be like, you're hanging out with them and he'll say, 'Can you make me a sandwich" and she'll punch him in the face but then go make him a sandwich anyways."
-Philip, on my apparent future marriage with Collin

"I have a bunch of picks for you guys. They say Metro Station on them, but they work."
-Kenny

"Here's what happened-"
"Just give us the details."
-Tony trying to help Scrib with telling a story during small group

"That's why (coffee's) dangerous," he said.
"It's not dangerous."
"Whatever relaxes you is dangerous. If you don't know that I might as well be talking to the wall."
Don DeLillo, White Noise


"It gave me the agility. To be chill."
-Tony, who will always be hilarious especially out of context


"You lost? well you're just wasting money aren't you?!"
-Philip, who had won $10 from lotto tickets, admonishing Collin

I know it turns you off when I get talkin' like a teen

I never said anything what I felt at Tegan and Sara's SLC concert last week. It was amazing, uh course.

But anyways. I was wondering what it would be like to step out onto a stage and be worshiped by screaming fans every night. To have perfect rock star hair and clothes, and to not be home forever and ever. It freaked me a little.

It was still an amazing concert, and their encore was really good. Dang.

Long overdue Nickisms

"Would you drink champagne if I opened it?"
"Dan, don't threaten me with a good time."

"Wait, will it ever come back?" (on the subject of his "golden" birthday, which was when he was eleven, so he didn't know about it)

"I want to go somewhere wild. Like Maine."

and one from Ashleigh:

"Sometimes I just think about the day-to-day space odysseys."


Oh Nicholas.

There is a house down the street, and the people living there do not have enough rooms. So some of them sleep in a tent under an overhang garage.
Strange, but resourceful. A lot of Americans seem to have lost this resourcefulness. There are other ways to live.

Dear Renee,
I am tired of trying to guess what you are like. I am tired of trying to learn about your more mysterious self, or even your day-to-day self.
You tell me nothing, the more I ask and plead with you. It should be obvious by now that I have been trying to make you be my friend, and that you want to live in your world of not answering my questions in full sentences.
I don't know your goals, or if you have them, because you are hiding all of them.
I will remain your sincerest of barely acquaintances even though we have spent most of the hours of the last year together.
So goodbye,
see you tomorrow,
and here's to me giving up.

-Me.

"My eyes are bigger than my stomach."
"That's because you have glasses on."
-Amalia (my mexican mother) to me, at KFC in Los Angeles

I am pretty suppressed because I only have 7 episodes left of Samantha Who? and I will be so sad when it's over for good.

To do this week:
... work a lot
... go to small group
... play a show with the youth band
... go to the Tolman wedding

And perhaps spontaneously buy a ticket back to Des Moines. My heart is hurting, and the midwest is like a big band aid, with weak coffee and strong love.

I was thinking last night, as I was taking off my fake eyelashes, that I should probably get married while I still have some energy. Like, maybe this week.

"Oh Rachel, whatever will I do?"
"Without me?"
"Oooooor in general."
-Darrell

I'm hoping for your sake I change; hoping for my sake I manage to remain the same.
Josh Ritter

Not being in school is essentially like heaven. Sometimes I look around and feel guilty about watching a lot of TV these days, but there is still enough going on every week to make me feel tired, so I'm probably shouldn't even feel that guilty.

Celisse's wedding was beautiful, and is over now. But there are more weddings to attend to and more hours to work retail, and Megan is here, and I am looking forward to a California trip next month, and always to my "trains" nights with my Ashleigh and Dan. To the final episodes of LOST. To new CD's coming out. To longer, lingering nights and sipping wine on the back porch. Things keep going, and I'm not even writing papers.
How did this happen? I think this Spring is going to be the beginning of Good.

Paul,
I am thinking. I should learn to sell myself to something farther down the road. After proven worth. After love returned. I am figuring out that when the lights are all green, all the way down the road at night, this is not always a good sign. It doesn't pave way for someone soft lying next to you til morning. It does not always put money in the bank account.
I am learning things, I suppose, Paul.
And if you don't care, then I don't care too.

-Me.

I've been watching Undercover Boss, and in result, crying a lot this week. My family got on Demand, so that basically took over my life for one day after work. This man, on the Waste Management episode really struck a note in me. He was super happy about cleaning up porter potties, every day of the week. He was really joyful doing one of the crappiest jobs in America. It made me realize that I could be him. That yes: I have a crappy job, but no: I do not have to let this bring me to miserable.

I think why this show makes me cry the whole time is, that there is a deep unrealized ache in me about working a low class job. When people ask me what I do, where I work, I whisper, "Starbucks," ashamed, humiliated. I love to watch the CEO's and COO's of these huge businesses come down on our level and these single moms, people on dialysis, former "artists"-all forced into sad jobs. And they realize that we need to be treated better. That the world runs off of us.

So what I'm trying to think is that I can be joyful no matter where I work. And that the world wouldn't keep running without poor people like me.

Although my brother cleaning the porter potties, it said at the end that he realized he wanted to bring his joy to way more people and started a job at a hospital. So, there's that.

tiny beer




Window to the Pacific, Cabo





I dream of going everywhere now. And I want to be more serious about this while I have youth and time.

when you are engulfed in flames

Yesterday I had an entire day off. I woke up at Tegan and Sara's and ran to the grocery store for supplies, and then spent the whole day watching the Kardashians make fools of themselves, which is extremely therapeutic. I love them, and think they are so very dumb.
I drank Dayquil all day and tried to get the dogs to not sit by me, but one problem is how deeply and unashamedly they love. I switched from Dayquil to beer at five, and ate a cardboard pizza all by myself and loved it.

It is the first time in a long time that I have said to myself, "This is the life." Its a hard thing to say when you work at Hell, but I said it, because I forgot for a whole day.

I like a good beer buzz early in the morning, and Billy likes to pull the labels from his bottles of Bud

So in this week so far, I woke up stranded in outskirts of the valley. In a residential neighborhood at least a mile from any kind of civilization. My phone was dead, the only charger I had was a car charger and no car to charge it in. The Mombergers' phone was dead. So I just started walking with my Mexico luggage for a long time, and waited half an hour for a bus that never came, and just kept walking til an establishment finally let me use their phone. What a basic yet crappy adventure.

Mac n Cheese never tastes good after 20 minutes of its being produced.

And then one of the days this week, my dad also caught a cockatiel out in our neighbor's front yard, and it lives with us now. At least it is thawing out and lives in a dog crate on our dining room table which is questionable, but only temporary.

"What kind of wine do you like, red, or tequila?"
-Samantha Who?

I should be packing. But instead I took a huge fistful of vitamins (I am trying not to get sick), and now I have an upset stomach and I just keep looking at people's blogs.
I'm going to Mexico for a week, and by Mexico I just mean the ocean, which I'm really happy about.
I want to come back clean and shiny, as Meredith Grey would say. I am excited to be somewhere new and see something new, and spend bachelorette time with Celisse and go swimming. I even bought two pairs of heels today, which I'm going to try to get better at wearing more often, because I just watched the entire first season of Samantha Who?

So cheers to a break from a real life, and considering what I get to look forward in the next one.

older roads
I wanna start over. I want to be with you.

We had our bad look days too. They didn't believe it could happen to us, but we'd be reading books groggily at 3pm and look over at one another. She'd groan, "Maybe we should put on more eyeliner and go out," in Portuguese, and I would nod. She didn't know I knew how bad we looked that afternoon, and the young men looking at our pictures later could think, "There is no such woman as perfect as that," with us, faintly winking at them on the other side of a lens in a far off town. But we weren't perfect-- us. We left paragraphs unattended to. Cookies unattended too. Our fake glasses could fall off our faces when we'd drift off into a nap, but our maid would make sure we didn't burn the cookies. I felt the power of saying no to anyone I wanted to. She felt the power to drink herself away and still get up for the work the next afternoon, no worse for wear.
But once the hours were more gone in the year, I knew. Looking at Sonya, I could know the wrinkles that would probably develop and that you can't go forever on carrots and diet coke.

Gossip Girl is an affair, but 30 Rock is definitely a marriage, and a rock in hard times. Wait, what?

I have a candle in my room that smells like waffles.

What I've learned from listening to hip hop and from Tyra banks is... that we don't really understand what is going on in the ghettos and slums. We don't know what we think we know about prostitution and gangs, and the other things that people in these places face everyday. These songs and music videos make us believe in something glamorous, though dirty, and make white middle class Americans feel like they're so gangsta on Friday nights at the club. But it's not glamorous.

I complain about my situation, when things could be a hundred times worse. I could be poor(er). I could be in Haiti. I could be a sex slave in a foreign country. I could be trying to support 4 kids on minimum wage.

Heart check.

"Billy hates mugs."
"Billy, you hate mugs?"
"I hate all mugs. Except for cool ones."
-Billy and Co.


"Well it seriously can't go wrong, buying a house. Because at least if it goes wrong, you have a house."
-Allison D.

"I gave you a shot, and while your efforts were admirable, I'm bored. You ruined my pants. Goodnight Blair."
-Chuck Bass

I haven't noticed that I'm not in school yet. It might take another week. I spent the last days of 2009 having a long slumber party with Shannon and Celisse, and its weird to even be at home sleeping in my bed. I might even be grumpy about it.

But in other news, I have Tegan and Sara tickets, my darling Megan is coming out for the weekend from FoCo, and I have a brand new handbag that could even rival my coworker Kelsey's ridiculously stylish collection.

"Wait, you are staying the night? Don't you have to come home and...sew something?"
-Amalia, trying anything she possibly can to get Celisse to not stay the night

"I didn't lose my new friend because I mentioned church, luckily. We went to dinner last night. She's a doll. Like, literally she looks like a doll."
-Kelsea

I'm weighing the pros and cons of taking a semester off. Looking at a degree audit report makes it look so smart to go this semester and just get the whole thing over with within a year, but the things that I want to get done in the next few months have overturned the decision.
This is the first Spring of my life (since I was 5 years old) that I won't be in classes. It feels so freeing. A huge weight strapped to a balloon and floating away. I have my big plans, but I also want to do projects. (I just watched Julie and Julia last night). She had such a cool thing, doing all of Julia's French Cooking recipes in a year. I don't want to overtake something so monumental, but I do want to cook and go bike-riding and hiking, and go to the dentist actually, and work on art that I'm always thinking about, and maybe practice my Spanish, and read books for enjoyment (Or preparation. I need to reread Shakespeare, and I feel like I'm behind because I've never read Paradise Lost by Milton. And I'm definitely learning that The Odyssey is central to just about everything in English Literature...)

So here's to plans, starting now. Not the New Year. Although my heart feels good about the future, and walking into open space.

We took apart the car, piece by piece, starting with the smaller ones, and moving on to the larger ones as our muscles grew bigger. Pretty soon we had a yard full of parts, and we grew bored with each other, sipping coffee and pretending.She took careful scissors to the seams of us, until we were separate pieces as well, and had nothing to drive away from the scene, since our car was parts.We erased each other from the calendars in our phones, we smiled brief smiles.
We graduated to a bottle of wine, once the sun had gone down and we were below freezing. With glasses clinking, we froze to the steps, froze in statues, looking at each other, forced to look at each other. Didn't thaw til it got warm the next days, but our hearts were beating slow, so we put the car back together but it took us hours, with intermittent breaks for calls from our bosses, or to renew our books at the library, or checking the mail and such.
It was a larger thing than us, so we sighed a lot.
Communication of sighs to each other for several days until it hurt to keep going that way. Or hurt more than it had, already. She felt a need to sew us back together. Felt a need to say sorry, but only with her eyes, and even the eyes only spoke in Spanish. We linked fingers momentarily, unwilling to admit love or sacrifice. She turned the ignition, I adjusted the rear view mirror but the car didn't start. We had more time to sit and think about what we'd done wrong, and our used books wouldn't sell, and how we had stopped taking pictures a year ago, so we couldn't remember having fun.
You do what you have to.

you keep saying that

I am in the same place that I was a year ago, for the first time in my life.
I am at the same job, same school, have mostly the same friends and enemies.
It is a very strange thing, and I don't know how I feel about it. Usually I do something drastically different every year, and while I love having a routine, I am feeling tied down, like I need to get going.

I'm just nervous and it makes me turn off my radio when I drive so I can think more.

And all of the while, I was dreaming of Revelry.
Kings of Leon

I don't think I understood until this day
the pain
of finals.


I am so excited to say goodbye to Leopold and Molly Bloom. At least for a while.

"I don't really know what's going on, why are we yelling and clapping?"
"I don't know what's going on. I just can't turn down free enthusiasm."
-me, and then Keaton's response

unsatisfied

I'm just thinking about how shifty things are, and how God wants us to be unsatisfied with the world. To long for Heaven, and oh Lord I do.

I have no reason to complain.
I have no reason not to tie up combat boots tighter and say, "Hell yes, I am a soldier, and that's how I'll go down one day."
Through a season of trouble and desperation, I am applying fresh bandages and reloading my gun.

This is all going to burn, and I don't know why I fight for it. I don't know why I worry. It's time. Time to go.

"I looked my demons in the eye, laid bare my chest, said 'do your best, destroy me.' I've been to hell and back so many times, I must admit you kinda bore me."
Ray Lamontagne

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S. Eliot

I just think this is really appropriate where I am.
Waiting, happily with my eyes shut.

In the Spirit of Starbuck's new consumerist slogan of "wish".

I wish that LOST was back.
I wish that there were no football.
I wish that MK would come find me and say, Yes I've always been in love with you, and when we stare at each other across the courtyard, it has made me write a masterpiece.
I wish for A's.
I wish for twelve dollars an hour.
I wish for no headache to keep living in me.

But in general, I am counting my blessings.
Such as the Lord, and how He provides. Such as dates. Such as Thanksgiving break. Such as not starving to death. Music. Health Insurance. Loving glances from girls in pea coats. A father who is a comrade. And brand new socks.

"Every time you blink, it looks like you are taking a nap."
-Emily



Sometimes there are surprisingly good ends to days that started out really awful.

"Yes and no, you have to choose, Romeo and Juliet: the hangman and the noose. You and me would go good together."
-Dave Matthews. Sometimes shared between me and a very good friend.

Ben Dory's dad was J.D.

He still is. He was like, uncle J.D. to me back then, though. He was really cool. My dad would make fun of him, because he had a ponytail. But they were the same age, and I think J.D. wore a leather jacket. But for sure I know he had a ponytail and rode a motorcycle. I remember him giving us rides on the motorcycle at probably midnight. Or it felt like midnight when you're five.
And once, he took Ben and I to his work with him, where he made robots, and one of them started moving towards us while he was in the bathroom and we fuhreaked out.

J.D.'s still married to Lisa, the feminist. Ben's mom. She would let her leg hair grow out and bleach it. Which seems like more work to me then shaving. But one time, she drank some coke on the beach, and a bee was in the coke can, and she got stung.

She cleaned both my mouth, and Ben's mouth out for saying Shut Up to the dog next door. She's a good mom.

I'm pretty nervous to ever leave my room.
9 days left of hell.

I woke up in a hospital, surrounded by men poking at my love-handles.

You are not supposed to believe though, in love-handles, if you work at a hospital. It's just fat. Just surrounding your waste.
Just providing warmth for the winter.
I let my arm fall over the side of the bed, hoping at any moment, they might raise the head-of-the-bed, so I could sit up. CAN'T MOVE. Hope they bring me a Sprite with a straw in it, hope they turn the channel on the TV to watch TLC. Need to know what not to wear.
He kneels next to the bed, one of the doctors, and they could all follow suit, but they watch to see how it plays out for him.
He asks me, respectively, on a date, on downtown to a restaurant I don't know about. So fancy. He is thinking in his mind, "She will be my lunch Ho." But doesn't say it out loud. Or maybe I am thinking the words lunch ho, because it sounds funny, even makes me laugh, even if that is not the phrase he is thinking for me. Scrunch my eyes. Maybe he is thinking girlfriend, by accident.
"I have so many boyfriends," I tell him, still thinking it'd be nice to be a lunch ho, and how long could I keep that up and still get my homework done for class each week.
He's weakened, but not deterred, because he has my chart in his hand. Could tell me anything, and I'd believe it because of dark framed glasses and Rolex watch. Could tell me brain cancer. Could tell me diabetes, which wouldn't be a big surprise.
But instead I stare out the window, thinking of Ben Dory. Racing for Teenage Mutant Ninja cereal bowls in the morning. Lucky charms mixed with cheerios. Forest Fire Fighter. First love. And the doctor coughs. Doctor Handsome I Read Books.
Doctor lock the door at night.
Doctor give me an answer.

But I am a naked hospital gown person. Can't promise anything before morning pancakes.
Can't
promise
squat.