WET. SOCKS. SUCK.

Facebook updates...
Kelly...
wonders when it became standard operating procedure to go home and have a good cry.
has just learned that scotch warms from the inside out.
is also starting to realize that other people are becoming impatient with her "single choices."
thinks she knows how Tinkerbell feels.
noticed that the only time she feels “right” is when she “feels” instead of “thinks obsessively.”
is so in love with music it hurts sometimes.
wonders what belonging means.
wants to define her own success…but doesn’t.
likes the smell of her finger tips after slicing a lemon.
thinks her freckles are cool.
loves what happens to her mind when her hands aren't idle.
wonders why her lips feel bitten when they haven’t been.
is the most eternally hopeful cynic you will ever meet
would like to know how, exactly, cold manages to seep into her bones
wants to ingest everything beautiful she sees, hears and touches…she wants to make it a part of her.

knows that she might not get it now, or ever. Period. But still feels, all the way down to whatever is her center, that she is extremely blessed. Period.

Sleepy.

And disquieted. I went to visit Evan and he fussed at me for not getting my locks changed...I kinda knew I needed to do it, but now I have to. I only hope I see the person who did this...I might look purely sweet and innocent, but I got a lotta rage...especially when you f with things that are meaningful to me.

I'm just sayin' ;-)

Anchors Aweigh


Stand Navy out to sea
Fight our battle cry:
We'll never change our course
So vicious foes steer shy-y-y-y
Roll out the T. N. T.
Anchors Aweigh
Sail on to victory
And sink their bones to Davy Jones, hooray!

Yo ho there shipmate
Take the fighting to the far off seas
Yo ho there messmate
Hear the wailing of the wild banshees
All hands, fire brands
Let's Blast them as we go. So

Anchors Aweigh my boys
Anchors Aweigh
Farewell to college joys (or "Farewell to foreign shores")
We sail at break of day day day day
Through our last night ashore
Drink to the foam
Until we meet once more
Here's wishing you a happy voyage home!

Heave a ho there sailor
Everybody drink up while you may
Heave a ho there sailor
For your gonna sail at break of day
Drink away, Drink away,
For you sail at break of day, Hey!

Blue of the Mighty Deep
Gold of God’s Sun
Let these our colors be
Till all time be done
On seven seas we learn
Navy’s stern call
Faith, Courage, Service True
With Honor Over, Honor Over All.

Country music on a Friday morning was probably a bad idea...eh. F it.
It wasn't Tim McGraw though, was it?...Trisha Yearwood? Yep.

Tim McGraw
(Taylor Swift)

You said the way my blue eyes shined,
Put those Georgia stars to shame that night
I said: "That's a lie"
Just a boy in a Chevy truck,
That had a tendency of gettin' stuck,
On backroads at night
An' I was right there beside him all summer long
An' then the time we woke up to find that summer'd gone

But when you think: Tim McGraw,
I hope you think my favorite song
The one we danced to all night long:
The moon like a spotlight on the lake
When you think happiness,
I hope you think: "That little black dress"
Think of my head on your chest,
An' my old faded blue jeans
When you think Tim McGraw,
I hope you think of me

September saw a month of tears,
An' thankin' God that you weren't here,
To see me like that
But in a box beneath my bed,
Is a letter that you never read,
From three summers back
It's hard not to find it all a little bitter sweet,
An' lookin' back on all of that, it's nice to believe:

When you think: Tim McGraw,
I hope you think my favorite song
The one we danced to all night long:
The moon like a spotlight on the lake
When you think happiness,
I hope you think: "That little black dress"
Think of my head on your chest,
An' my old faded blue jeans
When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think of me

And I'm back for the first time since then:
I'm standin' on your street,
An' there's a letter left on your doorstep,
An' the first thing that you'll read:
Is: "When you think: Tim McGraw,
"I hope you think my favorite song"
Some day you'll turn your radio on,
I hope it takes you back to that place
When you think happiness,
I hope you think: "That little black dress"
Think of my head on your chest,
An' my old faded blue jeans

When you think Tim McGraw,
I hope you think of me
Oh, think of me,
Mmmm
You said the way my blue eyes shined,
Put those Georgia stars to shame that night
I said: "That's a lie"

My whole body hurts and I want to sleep but I won't.

The television tells me that a pretty little pill will sooth the pain but I know the only thing that will work is heat...I've recently noticed that I seek it out like a fiend during winter in NYC, in any form that I can take it.

Jesus Christ, I am annoyed.

Part of this irritation stems from the chip on my shoulder, but knowing that doesn't help the irritation that I am sure is displaying itself boldly on my face.

Dammit.

George Bailey: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.
Mary: I'll take it. Then what?
George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?

's not too much to ask, is it?

Just the moon. I don't need the sun - someone else can use that as their token of affection.

My thoughts are flying randomly around the apartment like the 50 cent rubber ball I bought this weekend...God this book is long, God he's pretty, you're a hugely frustrating human being and I move between wanting to hug you and wanting to smack you all in the span of 6 minutes, I wonder if I can just will my laundry to get done...5 am is gonna come really quick tomorrow morning............

I've been thinking (again, yeah I know) of getting a street bike. Sometimes having no way out of the city beyond a bus or train is stifling. And since I am having the "I gotta go" stirrings again *checks watch: three years, well that's about right* I feel like I need to find more ways to coax my roots into growing deeper here. I don't feel like starting all over again, or going home to...I dunno what...not yet, anyway. But, regrettably, I barely have enough money for the hot shoes that I want, so getting a hot bike is probably right on the outskirts of my budget.

Shrugging my shoulders and crooking my lips to one side in "oh well" are becoming surprisingly familiar gestures to me.

Gotta post it every year...who says a brat lacks tradition?


Damn.
November again.


It’s only November
passing swiftly
as I plead for you
and fight against everything
that being on my knees will bring

It’s only November
and I wonder
fleetingly
whether or why
there is any reason to cast tears
or remain with grudges everlastingly

It’s only November
and I marvel constantly
why I give small aspects
of me
only to snatch them back
and judge them all unworthy

It is only November
and I am tired
the strain of my forged smile
wearing on the person that I could be
if only I could just let go of November

I can call you Betty,
And Betty when you call me,
You can call me Al.

I was going to start with, "it's strange" but who is callin' me strange except myself. Hadn't I better start saying "it's really cool" when I begin an observation about me?

So I got a text today. In this text, some news, happy news, was shared with me. The happy nature of this text caused me to chalk up the weakness in my knees to the 3 mile walk/run that I had just completed (I am way out of shape even though I walk up six flights of stairs everyday). I went about my business, merely putting my friends on alert should I "decide to freak out." Because, for the most part, when it comes right down to it, I really do decide whether or not I am going to flip my shit. Granted, sometimes it's better to decide in favor of flipping it, because internalizing it is clearly the wrong choice. Or so I'm told.

Most everyone knows that my ex-fiance is remarried. Nope, this isn't the maybe-I'm-gonna-shriek-and-pull-all-of-my-hair-out inducing moment. While I am appropriately happy with the fact that he is wed, what I concentrate on as being more important to my life is the fact that I am happy with myself and everything that has happened since I knew him, indicating to me that I made the right choice. Though, J.R. Moehringer makes an interesting point in his book, The Tender Bar: "...I didn't know why fate and free will needed to be mutually exclusive. Maybe, I thought, when we come to our crossroads, we choose freely, but the choice is between two fated lives."

Interesting.

Anyway, I bring it up to point out that I have loved, twice in my life. Shocker shocker, I know. The first love is wed, and the second, as I was informed tonight, is about to be. Cue the "well this is interesting and I feel as though I should react but I'm not really even sure that I care but of course I do but not for the reason that might be obvious, so...freak out or no?" conversation in my head.

The thing that I feel troubles me the most, and I've heard a couple of girls lament about something similar over cocktails and stolen glances at the cute bartender, is that essentially, I was the one before they met the one. Hmmm. One friend told me "I prepared him for her. I did all of the work, sorted through all of the baggage and put it away, made him settle down and appreciate being domestic..." Whoa. First of all, this chick is taking way too much credit upon herself for "raising" her boyfriend...isn't it just the case that guys (girls too, we should be doing this too, right?) mature and grow from their experiences and finally decide (sometimes) through a combination of "I'm done with worrying about pyscho girls and whether or not I've contracted something dirty" with "this is a girl who makes it worth it to stop worrying about these things, because after all, even though it's a bit scary, it's kind of fun" that makes them ready and willing to "pick just one girl"? And second of all, appreciate being domestic? Gross.

I struggle with this because on one hand, it doesn't really bother me. If you asked me now if I was ready, and I mean, stable enough kind of ready, to deal with either of them, I might giggle maniaclly and hiccup "ahaha uh NO." I STILL have a thing or two to learn, a demon or ten to put to rest, and an urge or 330 that I need to be out of my system before I am humming "dum dum de dum." I realize that, and on a good day, which is most of the time, I a golden.

But as I walked down 79th street tonight, typing away a congratulatory text to the ex who just got engaged, I got all choked up and weak-kneed again. As strong as I am, as much as I know that things are going the way that they should be, I can't help but think, why wasn't it me? And then I walk past a couple having a stand-off on the side walk. She had her hip cocked, her hand balled in a fist and rammed onto her hip as if she was afraid of what she might do with it if she didn't rest it there. He had his shoulders squared, jaw set, defiant. And no one was sayin' a word. They were just eye-balling each other...a similar stare that I remember holding all too well. I remember, when I did speak, I said "I can't talk to you anymore. Ever. I just can't." I remember when I did speak, all I talked about was moving. I'm leaving. I can't stay here. I gotta go. I gotta go now...

I remember making choices. Most were conscious, some I didn't realize that I had made until years later. But I chose where I am now, and there is not a bone in my body that feels that I might be happier had I not.

So, freak out, or no?

I took my red lipstick off so I could drink my beer.

It used to drive you nuts that I would leave the cabinets open when I cooked. I nearly banged my head for the third time on an open cabinet door in the bathroom, and thought about that.

I wonder if you remember the things that I do.

You know that college football is better, more real, than pro when the commentators get indignant and loud over stupid plays and bad calls.

#1 Alabama against #15 LSU - LSU was the first game that I was nervous about this year. The second was Georgia. We won both, but now I've got my eyes trained on bigger things, hopefully the SEC Championship.

'Bama scores first but then pulls an unsportsman-like conduct call because John Parker Wilson decided to taunt the crowd a little bit by pretending he was on a cell phone - fair enough, I guess...I would be a little touchy if a whole university campus and probably all of their fans had my cell number too.

I just don't know what I do when it's not football season...

There is no way that the words will ever be just right, so I might as well just write. And write and write until I just bleed the perfection right out of my fingertips.

I hold too many enoughs to the light in my life...strong enough wise enough pretty enough different enough that I will likely never be satisfied with anything and before I know it my whole life will have breezed right past me and then I won't have lived enough. Can't you see me shaking my fist at God with my puny little fierce indignation over the fact that I somehow worried my life away?

Writing is who I am. And because I take it so personally I literarily cut myself off at the knees because it means so much to me that it can't be wrong. I just can't mess it up. Sometimes everything else is wrong and when the writing is wrong it just hurts too damn much. Sometimes words, music, they are what I cling to what makes sense to me they are what I have to turn to. It might all be in my head and I accept that but there have been few constants in my life and words have been one of them.

I know that I am rambling but I don't care because this is for me to look back on and use to guide my life. I looke back on things that I wrote three years ago, and I was amazed...

I stood beside you
and knew you were there without looking
I absorbed all that was real to me, all that mattered and counted in the world on one beach. I smiled large enough to split my face and sighed in relief...home. Home home home. I gave wing to the belief that what I saw before me was real, because it was. I kissed that dove's back and let it free. In a few minutes, we will celebrate.

You came over to see me, I knew you would and I was glad. I have come to learn that five minutes of pure one on one time with any of My People is worth at least a year and I was just happy to be standing so close to the ocean, the source of my soul, and to be in your presence that I barely remember what we spoke about. I barely remember anything but being spiritedly ready to party and rejoice over the company that I was keeping with my love and the wind. We're old souls, you and I and I knew that time would tell me. Time is the best secret keeper and secret giver in the world, if you are patient enough to let it be so. I don't know that I am yet, but I'm tryin'.

The evening was a swirl of music and light and the sound of the waves and double rainbows and children. "I love the pool. I call it Fourth of July because it is beautiful." Every mouthful, every sound every smell I hold dear because it is a part of My Peace, a part of this Earth and a part of me. Content does not come easy to me and while I am over being amazed when it is there I am still so overjoyed to see it I cannot contain myself.

I stood with you again, towards the end of everyone's night and tried to explain why I had not loved again. I tried to give shape to the words on my tongue "because there are no Yous. Because I have had that five minutes, and I won't take a lifetime of anything less." I was so sad to see you walk away so suddenly and even sadder to realize that I missed you a second time. I miss you. I miss. It's odd. But I do. I wonder how many times we will miss before we finally stop circling desire for everything and give in to content. I wonder if we ever will.

Everyday.
I die.

Do you die?

I stare at the cursor blink
and wonder do you stare
at my reflection in the subway window

Or your own?

I try to decide how much of me
I have to give in
before I am deemed right
In my head
or your own.

I never wanted to be like you.
But you were there to emulate.

Who is your hero? Your disgrace?

I measure my step
with every iPod metered breath
and decide.
Survival of the fittest is realer than it every was.

And I don't care if you die.

The true genius of America...

I am thoroughly excited by the notion of change. I am intrigued to see what "change" will be. The only thing I know, is that my vigilent prayer will be that we never underestimate the power of belief and of hope. I pray that we understand that one Man, one Party cannot make change, but a Nation, a beautiful, adaptable, strong and independent Nation working as one, can better the world.

If he is not ready for anything else, I pray that he can be, in part, the balm that brings us together to make this change.

Bless.

The feeling...it's getting dug deeper down inside...harder to get out. Harder to call forth and feel. Harder for me to show that I am a real girl, and not just a puppet.

Who am I showing?

When I think in my head, all judgemental, "why doesn't she dance?" I immediately chide back "why didn't...why DON'T you?" I am so happy to have found my people. And to know that My Peace will be with me always.

Now I wonder where my talent has wandered off to...