No Reason to Panic

Leesburg has a welcome sign that always has town events posted.
Tarara Winery Tasting 8/16!
Home and Garden Show 7/28!
Morven Park Point to Point 8/12!
Today's posting said:
PANDEMIC FLU!
www.loudoun.gov/flu

Wow.

Pruning

Since 2003, I've moved 6 times.
And yet I still manage to own the most ridiculous amount of crap.
14 pairs of jeans!? 40 sweaters!? 5 guitars!? A George W. Bush pinata!? Really!?
I once again find myself in the midst of the packing frenzy, storing and stashing, tossing and consigning stuff. And once again I find that my sincere desire to leave has been nipped by my keen interest in staying. It's as if I need a countdown to departure for me to value what is around me. I guess it's a mental and emotional pruning in a way, a distillation to the matter. As Nacho Libre says, the "nitttty gritttty". It's taking this wide and vast pool of people I care about, and boiling it down to those I'll stilll be in contact with in a year. Or is it stocking up on tidbits of memories for the chilliness that is acclamation to a new space and time? What does that even mean?
Regardless, I want to move and I don't, simply because I'm having such a fabulous time being right here.

Tragedy and the Commons

So my little brother tried to kill himself last night. He slit his wrists back in February, and I didn't say anything about it out there on the ol' World Wide Web because I wanted to sort of shelter him. But this time? Well, serves you right, ya jerk!
Last time I went into a numb shock; I couldn't sleep or eat for days. Everything sort of flew by me as I stood, slackjawed in slo-mo. The family rallied last time, in a very a-typical expression of togetherness. This time the family is splintered, with varying opinions, fingers pointing and responsibility shirked. The "What next?" question hangs out there so loudly nothing else is really audible. My little brother is a hot potato, bouncing out of each of our hands before his has a chance to once again burn us. He's easy to like but really hard to love.
I just cannot fathom what would make one think their life so unlivable that they want an early exit. What would make it seem so sour or the future so bleak that could make such an act of blatant selfishness appealing? And from my only brother! It is all tragedy. I just hope he can finally get the help he needs.

Blow Stuff Up

July 4th was my mother's 14th wedding anniversary. I had the day off, so Amber, Erin and I went over to Amber's aunt's pool and laid out. I used to hate laying out, hated the immobility of it, but with a good book, an iPod, good company and a body of water in which to immerse, I have begun to enjoy it. Around 4 Erin and I left to go change and head into DC for the fireworks. The daily monsoon hit just then, and it was like trying to drive in a carwash. But there was no one on the roads! No one! We're driving into DC at 5:30pm on July 4th and it may as well been 9pm on a random Tuesday. It was beautiful. The monsoon probably scared them all away. Wussies (That is a technical, literary term). We were headed to our friends' house on 5th up past Chinatown and got there without a hitch. As soon as we arrived the rain cleared up, the sun came out and the roof dried off in no time. I spent most of the evening sitting on a sheet on the roof with my friends, drinking bad sangria (here's to you, Chris and Steve) and marveling at the fireworks around us. Darkness lay upon us softly and the explosions around became more frequent and stark against the humidity of a DC night. The Capitol's fireworks started and we had to sit on the neighbor's roof to fully see them (tree in the way). Over to the east it seemed as if the whole of NE was alight with bombs of reds, golds, purples and greens. Crackles and bursts of delight. As both these massive displays were occurring I began to think about how we can do this without even a suggestion of shell shock. We are the lucky ones, who have never heard a real bomb go off, who've never felt the jarring of those colors and sounds in malice rather than celebration. I don't know why that struck me as it did--in every direction there were fireworks and cheers, car horns and sparklers and it was all in joy, we didn't even consider it sounds of danger. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written by a man as he huddled, watching a fort being bombed, and we sing it and celebrate it by blowing stuff up. It would be like celebrating Thanksgiving by doing a month-long fast. Weird. Here's to you, Independence Day: Our 230th year of snubbing the Brits.

String too Small to Save

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.