I know I haven't posted in over a month--my mouse is broken and works only intermittently and it makes anything online arduous. I just returned from 4 days in Myrtle Beach with 7 of my girlfriends, which was HYSTERICAL, as one can imagine. Many games, lists, categories and mojitos came from it. I shall write on it later on.
Last night I went to my dad's to celebrate my birthday (late) and mostly ended up sitting around, watching TV with him--anti-climatic. But for some reason he pulled out this story about a guy he used to work with who's grandmother passed away and it fell to this guy to go through her possessions. In a drawer in her desk was a small box labeled "String too Small to Save" however it was filled with string.
I found that stirringly beautiful when I heard it.
I feel I need to think on it a bit more.
Anyway, I'm 25 now. Gulp. I got the internship in Asheville, so I'll be moving down there come August 17th and starting over yet again! Here's to the life we live as nomads.
Friday, June 2, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Look at Miss Ohio
...and I'm back.
That interim was due to my first actual 'vacation' since January, 2000 when I canoed the Everglades, and that was a whole lot of work for a vacation so maybe it shouldn't count. That trip I paddled 86 miles, worried about alligators and mosquitoes, ate potatoes for 10 days straight and spent 27 hours in a 15 passenger van with 9 other people. Not the basic definition of a va-cay. I was in the UK for about a week visiting my dear friend Liz, who is on YL staff outside of London. Whadda trip! It was retreat that was so absolutely necessary for me; to be away from the chaos and hurts that have been flung like ice cold buckets of water, coming from all directions and leaving me disoriented and dripping. In a way I was jittery coming back to the US from such a haven. I guess I should give trip details, to record for posterity, but I don't really want to. Maybe later. One of the highlights was seeing friend Sarah Beam and her brother (known as Iron and Wine) in concert in Bristol and meeting the two American guys and the Canadian girl and hanging out with them all night. Another was seeing 23 high school students doing a mad Easter-egg hunt relay and the ridiculous activities hidden in each egg (cheers to Caroline for the idea) like yelling "I REMEMBERED TO WEAR PANTS!" or getting their entire team to bark at the others. It was entertainment more for the leaders. Best part was just hanging out with my friend after not seeing each other since last July.
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I think my desire for constructive criticism is waning. Is that an age thing or is that just b/c of present circumstance? I care less and less what people think. The places where I could use polishing or trimming are very low on my list of priorities at the moment and it is reprieve but also makes me wonder if it'll make me callous. I want to improve upon myself...later. Present is full. Like the Gillian Welch song, "She said I wanna do right but not right now..."
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Returning from the UK I am thrust back into a flurry of activity. Today and tomorrow I'm back at work at BB before leading a canoe program over the weekend for camp. Then next Monday through Wednesday I'm back at work, then another two-day program for camp, Then work again Saturday through Wednesday, then another camp program. My next day off is sometime after the 15th. Then to Myrtle Beach for the Birthday week on Memorial Day. Whew!
That interim was due to my first actual 'vacation' since January, 2000 when I canoed the Everglades, and that was a whole lot of work for a vacation so maybe it shouldn't count. That trip I paddled 86 miles, worried about alligators and mosquitoes, ate potatoes for 10 days straight and spent 27 hours in a 15 passenger van with 9 other people. Not the basic definition of a va-cay. I was in the UK for about a week visiting my dear friend Liz, who is on YL staff outside of London. Whadda trip! It was retreat that was so absolutely necessary for me; to be away from the chaos and hurts that have been flung like ice cold buckets of water, coming from all directions and leaving me disoriented and dripping. In a way I was jittery coming back to the US from such a haven. I guess I should give trip details, to record for posterity, but I don't really want to. Maybe later. One of the highlights was seeing friend Sarah Beam and her brother (known as Iron and Wine) in concert in Bristol and meeting the two American guys and the Canadian girl and hanging out with them all night. Another was seeing 23 high school students doing a mad Easter-egg hunt relay and the ridiculous activities hidden in each egg (cheers to Caroline for the idea) like yelling "I REMEMBERED TO WEAR PANTS!" or getting their entire team to bark at the others. It was entertainment more for the leaders. Best part was just hanging out with my friend after not seeing each other since last July.
------
I think my desire for constructive criticism is waning. Is that an age thing or is that just b/c of present circumstance? I care less and less what people think. The places where I could use polishing or trimming are very low on my list of priorities at the moment and it is reprieve but also makes me wonder if it'll make me callous. I want to improve upon myself...later. Present is full. Like the Gillian Welch song, "She said I wanna do right but not right now..."
-----
Returning from the UK I am thrust back into a flurry of activity. Today and tomorrow I'm back at work at BB before leading a canoe program over the weekend for camp. Then next Monday through Wednesday I'm back at work, then another two-day program for camp, Then work again Saturday through Wednesday, then another camp program. My next day off is sometime after the 15th. Then to Myrtle Beach for the Birthday week on Memorial Day. Whew!
Thursday, April 13, 2006
I Blame You, Carrie Bradshaw
Today is my last day off before I head to VA Beach, then the UK, then a canoe trip, then the wedding marathon that is the summer. Calm before the storm. So I was folding laundry today and turned on the TV. I was flipping channels when I got to CMT to see a new Dixie Chicks video! What? Really? They are back? Essentially, the song is about the backlash they got from the pop country establishment after they spoke out about Bush back in early 2003. It's called "Not Ready to Make Nice" and it plays automatically on their website. I cheered. I watched it again (God love TiVo). I'm glad they aren't apologizing for their comments, or their politics! So they are liberal, that really justifies the banishment from radio? I think that this new single and subsequent album will be just as overexposed as their previous material, as it should be. If not, then country music needs to get a life. I used to love country but have found, since the Iraq Invasion and the "With us or are a terriorist" rhetoric, that my ability to tolerate the cliches and conservatism has wained. I don't even know where that pop crap is going now. If Toby Keith is anywhere near the helm of that ship, I want off. And even CMT is totally biased! Read the biography of the Dixie Chicks on the CMT site, it makes The National Liberty Journal look sort of balanced. I'm not a huge Dixie Chicks fan, but I am a fan of free speech. I'll support them more for that than for anything else. And they cover Patty Griffin songs. Bonus.
THEN! Then to make it weirder, right after the new Dixie Chicks video came a new one from John Corbett...as in Aiden from "Sex and the City"...as in the guy Carrie totally should have ended up with instead of Mr. Big who is, let's face it, kind of a schmuck. John Corbett, with sideburns and Jesus hair, singing about dying. Typical pop country song. What? I'm sorry he will always be Aiden. Even when he was in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" he was still Aiden. Even on "Northern Exposure" he was Aiden, like 10 years before Aiden existed. He is like Ashton Kucher who will always be Kelso, like Kelsey Grammer who is Fraiser, like Keifer Sutherland who'd better hope Jack Bauer never dies.
And actors singing? Didn't Don Johnson and Bruce Willis teach us something about that? Nancy Reagan did! She taught us "Just Say No" . This means you, Aiden.
THEN! Then to make it weirder, right after the new Dixie Chicks video came a new one from John Corbett...as in Aiden from "Sex and the City"...as in the guy Carrie totally should have ended up with instead of Mr. Big who is, let's face it, kind of a schmuck. John Corbett, with sideburns and Jesus hair, singing about dying. Typical pop country song. What? I'm sorry he will always be Aiden. Even when he was in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" he was still Aiden. Even on "Northern Exposure" he was Aiden, like 10 years before Aiden existed. He is like Ashton Kucher who will always be Kelso, like Kelsey Grammer who is Fraiser, like Keifer Sutherland who'd better hope Jack Bauer never dies.
And actors singing? Didn't Don Johnson and Bruce Willis teach us something about that? Nancy Reagan did! She taught us "Just Say No" . This means you, Aiden.
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Stepmom, Formerly
I went to my parents' house today to use their CD burner, as my laptop is ancient and still thinks "CD-ROM" sounds neato and futuristic.
Two weeks ago, my dad called to tell me he and my stepmom were separating after being together for 13 years or so. He is selling the house and moving to Upstate NY to work out of his company's office in Cazenovia and Lori is moving back to Massachusetts to be with her family. That, of course, sucks. It didn't really hit me until today, when I walked in to the boxes and piles of what I know of as home. It has shattered me today. I had trouble breathing in there from trying to contain the emotions I had. That's it! There goes my home! There goes my family!
When I was a child, I hated change; fear it, loathed it, tried to sneak around it. I took my parents' divorce harder than the other kids, simply because of all the changes to endure. I didn't want to know another house, know another parent, know another address. When I was in college I embraced change: sought it, reveled in it, lavished in its freedoms. Now here I am, stupidly shaking from the fear of change once again. It is time for them to separate and I believe it will be good for my father to get out of NoVA and head north to the trout streams, the dry summers and the quiet. It will be good for Lori to get back to her family. It will be good.
What is good and right rarely is equal to what is easy and clear.
I don't want to lose my dad to those miles. It's ok if I move away, but if he does move it screws with the balance of the universe! How skewed....
I look at all the photos I have with Lori and Dad from these years and wonder where to display them. Its not like she's my mom and I have a reason to have her around the house, but there she is with me and Dad at my graduation, at my birthday, on vacation. She was family. And it's not like we're close enough that we will ever keep in touch post-breakup.
It's just another of the cogs of chaos that have been whittled into the machine of my emotional life this year. I just can't believe I'm taking it this hard.
This is jumbled, poorly written and a Class IV rapid on the stream of consciousness. Sounds about right.
Two weeks ago, my dad called to tell me he and my stepmom were separating after being together for 13 years or so. He is selling the house and moving to Upstate NY to work out of his company's office in Cazenovia and Lori is moving back to Massachusetts to be with her family. That, of course, sucks. It didn't really hit me until today, when I walked in to the boxes and piles of what I know of as home. It has shattered me today. I had trouble breathing in there from trying to contain the emotions I had. That's it! There goes my home! There goes my family!
When I was a child, I hated change; fear it, loathed it, tried to sneak around it. I took my parents' divorce harder than the other kids, simply because of all the changes to endure. I didn't want to know another house, know another parent, know another address. When I was in college I embraced change: sought it, reveled in it, lavished in its freedoms. Now here I am, stupidly shaking from the fear of change once again. It is time for them to separate and I believe it will be good for my father to get out of NoVA and head north to the trout streams, the dry summers and the quiet. It will be good for Lori to get back to her family. It will be good.
What is good and right rarely is equal to what is easy and clear.
I don't want to lose my dad to those miles. It's ok if I move away, but if he does move it screws with the balance of the universe! How skewed....
I look at all the photos I have with Lori and Dad from these years and wonder where to display them. Its not like she's my mom and I have a reason to have her around the house, but there she is with me and Dad at my graduation, at my birthday, on vacation. She was family. And it's not like we're close enough that we will ever keep in touch post-breakup.
It's just another of the cogs of chaos that have been whittled into the machine of my emotional life this year. I just can't believe I'm taking it this hard.
This is jumbled, poorly written and a Class IV rapid on the stream of consciousness. Sounds about right.
Monday, April 3, 2006
Pounding Up Against the Stone and Steel
It's the time of the year when the skies begin to throw temper tantrums like a cranky two-year old. Last night's storm was full of gruff and grumble, of shouts and spitting anger. I loved it. I shut off all the technology that sucks me out of time, I grabbed a handful of candles for the power outage possibility and settled in the living room, watching the rain fall so hard it bounced; it seem to be traveling up and down with the same fierce intensity. I picked up one of my guitars and played "Rain" by Patty Griffin. Fitting.
I think I'm craving simplicity. I want the clear, the unobtrusive, the unobjective, the basic. Rain was that. Guitar is that. Fire is that. The more I live the more I realize I know nothing; I own nothing; I control nothing but my reaction.
Days ago I was staring at a photo of me and three of my oldest, dearest friends. The photo is 7 years old now, and in it we are wide-eyed, optimistic, opulent in our plans, heading off to college y mas alla! Since then, all of us have hurt each other deeply. We remain friends, tied together more by habit and history than anything present. We love each other like family. I look at the photo and wonder if we'd known what we would do to each other, would we have invested so heavily back when it was new? Probably. It's not that I am jaded or bitter, it's that I'm sad that we've come out of these past 7 years with so many scars. I forget the arsenal of weapons we hold.
I'm learning that regret may be the worst of all the ghosts we live with.
I think I'm craving simplicity. I want the clear, the unobtrusive, the unobjective, the basic. Rain was that. Guitar is that. Fire is that. The more I live the more I realize I know nothing; I own nothing; I control nothing but my reaction.
Days ago I was staring at a photo of me and three of my oldest, dearest friends. The photo is 7 years old now, and in it we are wide-eyed, optimistic, opulent in our plans, heading off to college y mas alla! Since then, all of us have hurt each other deeply. We remain friends, tied together more by habit and history than anything present. We love each other like family. I look at the photo and wonder if we'd known what we would do to each other, would we have invested so heavily back when it was new? Probably. It's not that I am jaded or bitter, it's that I'm sad that we've come out of these past 7 years with so many scars. I forget the arsenal of weapons we hold.
I'm learning that regret may be the worst of all the ghosts we live with.
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