Crumbs

Today I was sitting across from a man on the bus who was eating one. He, like most people, first tore the package and proceeded to eat it as though it was a candybar. By the time he was finished he was tongue deep in the wrapper searching for crumbs. 

In high school my friend's brother and his friends used to call me Crumbs due to the fact I always had a crumb collection on my boobs. This contributed to my learning to eat crumbly things in a non-crumbly way. As a result I learned to eat crunchy granola bars the same way I would open a bag of chips -- by opening one of the ends instead of tearing it. Then I break them in pieces while they're still in the package and eat the pieces as finger food. When I'm done I empty the crumbs into my mouth the same way I do Cheetos. 

A couple minutes later he took out a second bar and repeated the heinous process of gobbling it down. I thought about enlightening him as to my less-embarrassing, neater way, but didn't. I figured drawing more attention to how disgusting he was would be mean, especially considering he was a stranger.

This is a common issue for me. I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but I spend a lot of time thinking about really stupid stuff, like eating granola bars, because I am certain there is usually a better way to do everything.  And I'm right about that most of the time.

My Imaginary House

About a year ago a friend and I were fantasizing about moving to a beach house or buying a vacation home together when we're not poor, so hopefully in about a decade. At the time I found a house that's about an hour away from the beach in my mom's home town. It's pretty centrally located between several larger towns in Eastern North Carolina.

Recently I was looking at houses in that area again, and found that the same one was still for sale. It's been for sale for about two years, and I doubt anyone will scoop it up anytime soon. My mom's hometown is pretty decrepit. It had a textile mill and a Pepsi plant in the 50s and 60s, but once those moved the only industry left was tabacco, and that's not even as prominent anymore.

The median age in the town is 44 and about 50% of the population lives below the poverty line. The crime rate is close to twice the national average, though most of those crimes aren't violent.

My mom has told me that this is a terrible idea and that I don't have money anyway, though, "If you really want it I suppose you could buy out the owners."

About two years ago I interviewed several of my mom's relatives. I have a bunch of letters and copies of deeds and other similar documents, and have this outrageous idea to write a book based on my mom's dysfunctional family -- she's not exactly stoked about the idea, there were a lot of alcoholics, lots of infidelity, and a few of them dabbled in the Ku Klux Klan. Ideally, I'd like to do this in the house I'll buy there.

I'm going home next month for a visit and have plans to road-trip down to see the house with a friend. I figure if it's awful in person, then I can forget about the idea for awhile. But even if the house is terrible,   I'll find another, and moving there will still be part of my plan. After school and after I pay off my loans, hopefully I'll have a solid portfolio and will be able to freelance and can live wherever, including The Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina.

The more I think about my imaginary house, I think of who I'd like to be there. I've always been somewhat environmentally conscious, but I've become more-so and I'd like to have a home that's completely self-sustained. I want to make everything I eat, and put on my body, and use in my home. I want to bike the flat land around it, and I want to teach kids to read, and I want to be a girl scout leader, and to have strangers over for dinner.

The person who would live in that house is much better than I am now. She's more compassionate and less selfish, and patient. I know I don't have to live there to accomplish these things, but I suppose in my head once I've achieved all those things, I'll be able to make there happen, and maybe start something to lift up that wretched little town.

Childhood Ambition

When I was a kid my mom and I used to drive around after church each Sunday and go to model homes. My mom would see what was trendy and try to find something similar at yard-sales or discount stores. I would make notes, in my planner (because I had one of those, I bought it with birthday money), about what details I liked and what I thought was tacky. I never really liked the decor in model homes, but I did love bay windows and sunken living rooms and arched doorways.

My mom has always wanted a large house, one of those McMansions that she has spent so many years cleaning. But the realtors who were always present at model homes didn't know what my mom did. To them we were just some lady and her odd daughter taking notes. Between these homes and the ones I saw in coffee table books, I was set on being an Architect for a very long time.

My mom was raised really poor, and I think she's always been fascinated by what people with money look like and buy. It was important to her when I was coming up that I looked a certain way, not just because she didn't like my torn up jeans and band-tees or ragged hoodie, but because in her day I would have looked poor. It didn't matter that I fit in with most kids my age, it wasn't "nice." This was with all things. My brother once told me it bothered him that people assumed our family had more than we did because of the way my sisters and I were dressed. I felt similarly, our duplex seemed inadequate compared to all my friends' homes.

I kept my notes and would go home and draw a blueprint. The concept of designing an entire house didn't really hit until I was older, so I had all these drawings of my ideal room. When I was around ten my dad bought me Sierra Home Architect, a computer program that allowed you to design buildings. I didn't have video games, but I had that and I would spend hours designing my dream house (it would have an octagon foyer based my earliest designs). 

My parents encouraged this as much as they could, which included taking me to several of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes. I wrote my fifth grade SOL essay about Taliesin West -- I got a perfect 600. Three years later I was accepted into an engineering program at my high school and did that for two years before I realized how much I hated drafting in CAD and Visio. But I would still sketch things in my notebooks next to terrible poetry. 

I spent last year living by myself in a studio and didn't realize it for some time, but that was the first childhood ambition that came true. All those sketches of my ideal room were finally brought to life. A single room, arranged precisely how I had envisioned it. Split up into a bedroom area, a dining area, a living room area -- there was a system and it felt like more than just a large blank room. I think Frank Lloyd Wright would have approved. 

It seems so silly, but I spent the first two decades of my life just wanting a giant room to call my own. Then I had it, and wanted it somewhere else. 

Thoughts on My Former Life

Washington DC Temple - Mormons get married here.

When I was a child, like all children, I believed everything my parents and most other adults told me. But, unlike most of my friends, I was being raised by Mormon converts. My father converted to Mormonism in the late 1960s after his commanding officer in Viet-Nam noticed that he wasn’t attending church services on Sundays and invited my father to join him – he was baptized there. My mother converted in 1972 after her brother and sister-in-law joined and encouraged her to do the same. My parents met at a church dance when my dad was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, they got married seven months later.

I remember getting into arguments with my non-Mormon friends about religion. I was convinced that I was right and they were wrong, and this spilled over into most aspects of my life. I wasn’t taught to believe the church was true, I was taught that it was true – to know the truth. Therein lies the difference. I believe that I’m going to live to see tomorrow, but I know it. As with anything I’ve since learned that I can’t really know anything. Everything changes, and what was true yesterday may not be true tomorrow. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I’m rarely disappointed.

With all the hubbub surrounding Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman’s presidential bids, it’s shed an interesting light on the Mormon experience. I personally don’t concern myself with the religious affiliation of those running for any office, because it doesn’t matter to me. However, I do see this as an opportunity for the Mormon church to do more than the “I’m a Mormon” campaign. Being Mormon means more than believing that a prophet is currently alive and can literally speak for God, more than the beliefs is the culture.

Mormons go to church each Sunday and refer to one another as “brother” and “sister.” They are taught that the second coming of Christ cannot happen until all the spirits waiting in heaven have received bodies here on Earth, hence their large families and the church’s former policies against contraception (they now leave family planning to couples to decide over prayer as large families began to drain the church welfare system). They believe that men and women have equal, but different roles, and those “different” roles are what lead outsiders (and insiders) to think that the role of the woman is to remain supplicant to the man. If you have questions, it’s best not to ask them because only those who aren’t devoted to the Church, and to God could question it, and you don’t want other members to talk about your wavering faith. Though, if you do ask a question that doesn’t have an answer you’ll probably be told that the answer has yet to be revealed to a modern day prophet and that God will reveal that knowledge when the time is right.

In yesterday’s Washington Post Carrie Sheffield wrote about her experience within the church and out of it. And I can agree with everything she has to say. Though, unlike her I started questioning the church in middle school. When boys and girls turn 12, they graduate from Primary – essentially a time each Sunday for children to sing fun songs about god – to the Young Men or young Women’s organizations. There we’re taught about our roles within the church and society and how we can be good members of the church within those roles. This is to say, I was told that women should go to college, to get an education “just in case” anything should happen to my future husband that would require me to work outside the home. And that my first responsibility was to my husband and then my children, and that I should only grow up to work outside the home if absolutely necessary.

That wasn’t the life I had envisioned for my future. My parents allowed me to develop a slight obsession with Frank Lloyd Wright, and I wanted to be an Architect. If my mom could do it all, why couldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I? I’ve never been very receptive to being told what to do if I can’t see it directly benefiting me. I like making my own decision and not having ridiculous rules set in place for me to follow. In the summertime I liked wearing shorts, but once I hit puberty suddenly everything was too short. “Modesty” is defined as wearing clothing that isn’t “revealing” – shirts must completely cover your back and stomach no matter how you move, skirts and pants must cover the knee, and shirts must cover the shoulder – all of this is to prepare you for temple marriage and the “special underwear” you will one day wear. That’s fine, but it’s presented as a choice, but nothing in Mormonism is really a choice.

Your choice is to do what you’re “supposed to do” or not be a member in good standing, which goes on your church record and will affect what callings (job) you may have at church and ultimately if you’ll get into Heaven. It is often said that you should “be in the world, but not of the world.” Though many have taken that to an extreme as to ostracize those who do not believe, and do not act the same way you do. Members of the church are more than happy to welcome you into the fold, but as soon as you question something, or express a difference in opinion, those friends you’ve made can be gone. Because if you’re choice to live life in such a way that makes you happy, is not the prescribed method for happiness as proclaimed by the church – it is wrong.

If you leave, or “fall away,” you have to be prepared to not have those friends anymore. The beliefs of the church aren’t so different from other Christian faiths, but the culture is among the most uniform and extreme. It’s not enough to share the same basic beliefs if you don’t practice them in the same way. And if you come to the realization that it’s all bull pucky, well, they will mourn your loss and discuss it in the hallway as though you took up heroin and need to go to rehab. Because how could anyone not be happy living the way that they do?

It does seem appealing, and I understand that living that way works for a lot of people. But it didn’t make me happy. Leaving the Church was like having a boulder lifted off my back. The anxiety, the depression, the consistency of never being good enough – that was gone. I still feel these things from time to time, but not because I feel inadequate trying to reach some ideal that’s been decided for me, I feel that way because I know who I want to be and I haven’t reached become her yet.  

September 11: Ten Years Later

I was still getting to know the girls at my lunch table, we were all beginning sixth grade together in a new school. An eighth grade teacher on lunch duty escorted my friend, Elizabeth, to the front office. Her mom had called and wanted to let her know that her dad was alright. Elizabeth's dad was in the Marine Corps and had been in New York that day. 

We hadn't heard anything from teachers or other students.  I had noticed a few students leave school early, but nothing out of the ordinary, though as the day progressed and class sizes shrunk it became more apparent. 

When Elizabeth got back from the office she told us that a plane had hit some skyscrapers in New York. None of us knew what the World Trade Center was, none of us had been there, I had never been to New York City. It was completely foreign to me. It wasn't until I got home from school that I found out about the plane that had hit the Pentagon, just twenty-five miles away from my house.

Volleyball tryouts and all other after school activities had been canceled. My mom wasn't home, but she didn't want me to be by myself and had asked her friend to meet me. It wasn't that I wasn't allowed to be home alone, it was that she was nervous. I don't remember the woman's name, but we sat on the couch and watched the footage together. I don't really remember talking to my parents about it. I knew what happened, I had let it set in, but I wasn't scared.

That night everyone in my neighborhood had flags and candles set out on their porches. School had been canceled for the next two days and everyone on my street was outside. While the adults talked amongst themselves, me and a couple of other kids noticed the helicopters flying overhead in regular intervals. We were used to seeing them, it's fairly normal to see one any day anywhere in the DC suburbs, but not as frequently as they were that evening, and for the following months. 

The next day's paper included a printed flag for readers to tape in their windows and doors. The candles continued to be lit each evening. The eerie sense of unity persisted well after the paper flags had faded and been thrown away. 

I understood what terrorism was, but it wasn't a word that I had heard much before September 11th, I wasn't aware of The Middle East, or what countries it was made up of - I could hardly pass my states quiz in History class. September 11th very abruptly made me aware of a much larger world, one in which one's nationality and religion mattered. I had Muslim friends and classmates from everywhere, and that day didn't make me reconsider their friendship, it wasn't something that anyone cared about at lunch, not at school. They were Americans too, and just as affected as I was. 

Of everything everyone seemed to be feeling, the only emotion that had really set in for me was sadness. I was confused. We hadn't done anything, at least nothing twelve year olds are aware of, and the idea that people existed whose intentions were to interrupt my life, who set out each day to conceive new ideas for inflicting fear upon anyone vulnerable enough to accept it, that, that was what I didn't understand. Ten years later there is still no understanding to be had. As long as people remain scared of the unfamiliar, of the foreign, of people in clothing different than our own, with customs traditional to a culture we ignore and bigot, the hatred and fear and terror will persist.

Savannah: The Prologue

A couple months ago my friend, E, suggested that we go to Savannah, Georgia because she was born in Georgia and wanted to go back one more time before she goes abroad for grad school - because she has no intention (mostly) of ever coming back to the United States. I'm down for most things, so I agreed to go. Her summer plans are still up in the air, she doesn't know where she'll be interning yet, so we decided it had to be in April. We went this past Saturday and got back on Tuesday.

My friend, K, lives with a bunch of my friends in DC. She's from the Pacific Northwest and had never been south of Richmond before this trip. I don't think she was fully aware of what she was getting herself into.

Jesus Waffles

I grew up in Norhtern Virginia, but I spent all of my childhood family vacations visiting family members. My mom's family is from East North Carolina, she grew up specifically in Kinston (it's off 41, close to Goldsboro, yeah...). My dad was born in Memphis and grew up between there and Phoenix. We're Southern. I have been to pig pickings. I can drop "y'all" without noticing. I am fine walking around in jorts without shoes on. There is a part of me that is instinctually Southern. I can't shake it. I used to hate it, but I know my family's history, and there's a lot to be embarassed about, but I understand it, and I can't change it, so I accept it and love it anyway.

I've also written about Fat People here before. And I enjoy making fun of people as much as everyone else, or maybe more than most, but I am unphased by the South. I have seen Confederate flags worn and displayed unironically, proudly. I know that there are still people that refer to the Civil War as the War Between the States, and that those people don't think that race had anything to do with it, it was, to them, a Big Government infringing upon states' rights. My personal opinons aside, I get it.

People are fat, and sometimes people wear shirts with Tweety Bird on them, or relatively offensive racial or sexist slurs, or something five sizes too small - that's a typical Southern beach town. All of that aside, they just don't care. No one can accuse them of being uptight, they're happy with who they are and they own it.

Bad Influence

When my friend, E moved to DC a couple months ago she kept talking about meeting new people because she had "burned so many bridges" in Richmond. E and I have known each other since high school, but were equally annoyed by each other then. It wasn't until I moved to Richmond to attend VCU that she and I became friends. After a bunch of haphazard encounters we finally started hanging out on purpose.

A few weeks ago we were exchanging stories of our childhoods. She told me about how making friends was a game to her as a child, she would go places determined to make as many friends as she could and fully aware that she would never see these other children again. It didn't bother her, she just figured she'd make new friends later.

I was the exact opposite. I had a few very good friends at any one time. My kindergarten best friend was a girl named Kimberly who would get upset with me daily, usually at lunch or recess, and tell me that we weren't friends anymore. And every day as we stepped on the bus she would ask if we could be friends again. Of course we could, I had never considered us not to be friends anyway. I'm still this way. I could list the number of people I've had legitaimate falling-outs with on one hand.

E doesn't disregard her friends, quite the opposite, and I think this is why we're friends, she just doesn't allow herself to deal with other people's problems and projections. That's not to say that she isn't there for her friends in their time of need, she is, but she also isn't going to let you go on about things that don't matter for weeks on end. It's healthier.

I have only recently been okay with letting go of relationships. I don't do it well, and I tend to hold on for far too long. My, now ex-best friend, and I had not had a decent conversation for months. The last of which she had told me about the possibility of her getting engaged. Then I was supposed to visit her and things fell through, and then I saw her briefly at church of Christmas but she insisted that she was busy the entire time she was home, and it wasn't until after New Year's when we finally had it out, via G-Chat. Seriously.

The Ex-bff is still a practicing Mormon. She has never been particularly good at communicating her feelings, she's always taken the passive route whereas I take everything head on. We grew up together. We sang duets almost annually at church Christmas parties and planned youth activities together because we didn't trust (like) anyone else's judgment in where the balloons should be placed for youth dances, or what songs should be put in the Mormon-camp song book. We never had that much in common, but we complimented each other well and enjoyed making fun on the same people. She was really the only reason I went to church in high school, and she was fully aware of that.

It wasn't until we had this G-Chat conversation that I realized how much she disapproved of my life. It came out of nowhere, we hadn't talked, what did she know? She explained that she had tried to be subtle before, I had no recollection of this. She said that I was "self-destructive" and "let people walk all over me." She was the first one I told after I had sex for the first time, but I never expected her to go out and do the same. I never expected her to do any of the things I did.

She recently got engaged. He was, is, her first kiss. And from what my mother has told me, she has quite grad school. I haven't talked to her about it. She made it very clear that she had no interest in having me be a part of her life anymore, which hurt, a lot - I cried all day that day, and then it was over. I haven't talked to her about the engagement, but part of me can't help but think about all of her ambition. I don't think it just went away, I just can't believe that she gave up going to the best school in the country for her program to get married. But then, we don't really know each other anymore. Apparently she's changed just as much as I have.

E had a similar experience around the same time and we both decided that we were part of people's resolutions to rid their lives of "negative" influences. Good riddance. Thankfully E and I negatively influence each other regularly.

Amanda the not-so-Academic

When I was in the fifth grade I was in every club, every organization, played softball, took piano lessons, was in orchestra, Girl Scouts, participated in a youth choir and other various church related activities. I also was relatively afraid of getting into trouble - I say relatively because I have always been willing to get into more trouble than Christina, but less than others (though this has certainly changed over the years). I typically did as I was told. I practiced the piano for half an hour every day and stayed up until I had done all of my homework and it was all correct. My entire life was structured, down to the minute.

At the time of "graduation" I received more awards than everyone in my class. I made the honor roll, I was even "orchestra student of the year" - and my parents had never heard me play the viola before. That was also the only year that I played the viola. I also got a perfect score on my writing SOL (the Virginia standardized test) - the prompt was "write about your favorite place" and I wrote about going to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's school in Arizona. Do you see what type of kid I was? I was a nerd to the umpteenth degree. And I had manners and I would rather stay in during recess and read than go outside and participate in whatever games were taking place. The aversion I have towards my peers started pretty early.

This kid that I was, she got everyone's hopes up as to what my future would look like. I was on this path headed towards greatness. I wanted to be an architect more than anything and I was always in advanced classes. I started taking French in sixth grade and then took algebra in the eighth grade, and instead of taking art or music for my electives I took engineering courses that were weighted (basically AP elective courses) in the Project Lead the Way program.

It was at this point, my freshman year of high school when my parents could no longer help me with my homework, and all of the activities took a toll. And whatever sheltered world my parents had created around me shattered. Suddenly going from volleyball practice to a piano lesson to a Girl Scout meeting and then staying up all night to do homework wasn't working. So, I quit Girl Scouts. And then softball. And then piano. And then volleyball. And with each activity that I gave up, my parents became disappointed and I began to avoid conversation with them as I knew it would most likely result in their desire for me to be that fifth grader who was capable of, and did, everything. And by the time I was fifteen, I didn't want to do everything. I wanted a life, something unstructured. But all that really resulted from that desire was my disinterest in doing anything academic.

I was in the gifted program, and I was in the same classes as everyone else whose parents had been as involved as mine were their entire lives. There were about thirty of us, we all took French in middle school and we were put in most of the same classes through our senior year of high school. It was during my junior year of high school where I spent the first semester really not doing much of anything in my AP English class. After I scored the highest on the mid-term in the class my teacher took me aside and told me how frustrated she was that I wasn't performing at the level she now knew I was capable of. My cover was blown by some essay about a sarcastic orchestra conductor - apparently the rest of the class didn't catch the tone of the piece we were supposed to analyze.

My senior year, we had do a project for AP Government that required we volunteer for the political campaigns and then write a paper about it. My teach wrote "flippant" next to my grade. I think it was a B, but that's all he wrote.

I recently came across an interim report card from that year, I had a D in English as a result of not turning things in...yet. I got them turned it before the actual report card went out. I'm still amazed at English teacher's willingness to let me turn things in late. I swear I didn't do half the assignments at the end of my junior year, and I went to school even after it was out and my teacher was still there because grades weren't due yet. I would sit at an extra computer in her classroom and do the assignments as she was grading others. She may read this and correct me, I may be wrong, but I swear she would ask me if I was going to do something and if I said yes she would just give me the class average.

Every year it was the same. Every teacher I have ever had that has talked to me for more than five minutes has told me to stop being such a "slacker." By the time I got to VCU, I had gotten by because I knew my teachers and for the most part, they liked me, but more importantly, they put up with me. Except for The Don - whom I will write about later. Anyway, these teachers, mostly English teachers knew I was capable and they did what they could to encourage me. And I'm still in touch with the important ones. When I got to VCU I had to take this awful class that was what they had instead of English 101. It was taught by people from various concentrations and I got stuck with this dude who was working on his Theater PhD or something, anyway he was an actor and we did not get along. He was always telling me that I need to expand things and that I needed to change my attitude and then he made the mistake of telling my class that he graded us based on what he thought we were capable of. So, when we got grades back and I knew that I had written something that was helluva lot better than the girl from Martinsville, Virginia who didn't know the meaning of ambiguous, but she got a better grade than I did, I was furious.

I'm fairly certain that this is why I flunked out of VCU, well part of it anyway. When you're depressed and motivated by liquor and crackers, and then you are getting your lowest marks in the subject that you are used to getting your highest marks - it's frustrating.

I basically started over last semester at the community college in Richmond. And I like it better. Apparently I do better in small classes where the professors know my name and I cannot hide, and my English professor has a PhD in English and gave me a 95 on my first paper. Fucking finally. I know this sounds terrible, but I don't think I've gotten a mark this high on anything since starting college. This was a three page paper that I wrote in about an hour. Perhaps her standards are just really low because it's community college, but whatever, I finally feel like that stupid fifth grader again. Then I got a 101 (with extra credit) on my first history test of the semester. And then I got an 83 (which is a B, but wouldn't have been in high school) on my first Statistics test, a test that I swear I had bombed.

I'm fairly certain that this is a direct result of my general contentment with where my life is right now. I finally live in a healthy environment. I have a fairly healthy relationship with my parents that was not at all possible when I lived at home, and they have stopped badgering me about my studies. I love my job and I'm writing more. But I still feel like this is a cheap joke and that next week my professors will announce that they graded all of those thing incorrectly and that 95 was supposed to be a 59. So, I'm not getting my hopes up, but I am reevaluating my expectations that I have for myself and have learned how to structure my time in a way that is healthy and not overwhelming, at least for me. My roommate saw my schedule and told me that it was insane, apparently making a color-coded excel sheet and putting it on the refrigerator is "OCD." Whatever, it works.

Running Through Walls

I know that I posted the 'Walls' video two posts ago, but I'm posting it again. This time with an explanation.

Among my all time favorite bands, and mind you my musical taste is always growing is the band Shout Out Louds. I love them. All of them. All of their albums. All of their songs.

I saw them for the first time this past Sunday, it was a long time coming. I reviewed the show for The Vinyl District (it will be up tomorrow) and I interviewed Adam Olenius and Bebban Stenborg for RVA Magazine (that's coming later as well). They are more charming than I had anticipated. And Adam is much taller than those videos give him credit for.

Anyway, 'Walls.' 'Walls' is one of those songs that I just cannot stop listening to.



Walls lyrics:

You know it, there's a a wall and you just run through it.
You had too much to drink, and all those telephone bills...but it's worth it.
Victoria, I just knew I'd end up in Victoria.
I took too many pills, and wrote my will just to get to you.

I need a pencil, a piece of paper, a lock and a cage.
It feels so much better now, getting rid of my rage.
I'm suspicious. I'm suspicious and can't keep my mind straight.
I see them when I sleep, nowadays, so sleep now and go.

It's so new now, being the one building all the roads.
Can't wait to crack all of your codes.
Learn how to ally, allies who know how to love.
And show you how it looks up there, it looks like a bug, so go.

Whatever they say, we're the ones building walls.
Whatever they say, we're the ones who never say no.
To get to know yourself, you gotta run away.
Never trust anyone, so run away, run, run, run.

- Adam Olenius


This is exactly where I am in my life right now. But don't misinterpret the last stanza, I don't think it's really about running away from things as much as it's about finding out what those things are and changing them.

I know I need to write more. I know that I need to read more, travel more, be more. I know that I have a lot of things about myself that are going to change on their own and other parts that I will have to be more proactive in changing.

I really need to become better at editing my own work. Luckily, I have a friend who has volunteered to do that for me. And if he has anything to say about my life (and he does), I should be done writing a best-seller sometime next year. So, between semesters, I will be writing, a lot. And he will be telling me that it's all complete shit and to change this and to "lift" that.

The Undeserving

I drive around in the car that my parents bought me with the insurance money they were given after I got into an accident in the car that they had previously given me. While I drive, I put the windows down and turn the music up as loud as it will go. The music comes from a black ipod that was bought for me by a friend for my birthday after I stupidly left my old one, that I saved up for an entire summer to buy, in my car - that was when I found out that the locks didn't work all the time.

Sometimes when I'm driving around in the bubble that I've created, I come to stop lights and intersections. At these places are men and women two, three times my age with signs. Written on those signs are questions, thoughts, sometimes the single word "help."

I'm not a religious person, and I wasn't even raised Catholic, but I've adopted that cross thing that they do. And while I'm avoiding eye contact, I look up to the God that may or may not exist, but I believe in, and I do that cross thing and think to myself how good I've got it.

Those men and women have lived longer than I, and they've probably worked harder and experienced things that I may never experience, both good and bad. When the light turns green I think of the granola bar that I keep in my glove compartment and how I should have given it to them, but it's too late. Then I show up late to wherever I'm going, somewhere that requires me to have money, gas money, ticket money, food money - money. Disposable income. Money that I can spend freely on whatever I choose, because I earned it, because I'm fortunate enough in my twenty years to have both a job and parents who make up the difference.

Today I looked at studio apartment in a clean building that didn't have roaches or mice, and there was a diverse population in both age and ethnicity that lived in the building. I looked at this building because I like nice things, and while I don't consider my upbringing to be particularly luxurious, I wasn't poor and I've never known real hunger. I have gone to the dentist every six months my entire life, and when I get sick I don't have to worry about absurd premiums. And when the crazies start to creep in, I can pay someone to listen to my demons. And when something doesn't go my way, I can make a fuss until it does, because I wasn't told no very often.

And it's because I am not familiar with the word no that I am able to fumble my way around and maintain the level of comfort that I feel I deserve. But I don't, at all. And that is really scary.

I'm trying to earn it.

I hate running.

My ass is sore. I would ask someone for an ass massage, but I don't think that would go over very well, though I can think of a couple of people who would probably oblige.

I am not a runner. I hate running; probably more than any other thing that I have ever done. Sprint? Sure! Hike? Great! Walk? For hours! Run? No.

I grew up playing softball and volleyball. Neither sport requires long distance running, though I did have the occasional coach who thought it necessary to lead us on several mile runs after we lost a game (and for the record I hated her, and she was a terrible coach aside from those runs and she was no match for her predecessor). I also used to go to the gym when I lived with my parents. I can stay on an elliptical all day. But "running" a mile on the elliptical is not the same as running a mile outside. That machine totally lies. I used to go to the gym and do an hour on the elliptical before making my way around to the other machines, and it wasn't a problem.

I have been making an effort as of late to take better care of my body. I already eat fairly healthfully and stretch, and hula hooping (it totally counts as exercise). I went for an interval jog on Friday. I ran a block, walked a block down to a local lake then walked around the lake and ran/walked the way back. It was easier on the way back, so I did it again on Saturday. And, it totally kicked my ass. It doesn't help that I'm bad at breathing - that sounds stupid, I know, but really I think that I lack the lung capacity to breath correctly while running. This is something I really need to work on.

I have no intention to run a marathon or participate in any sort of race. I would just like to develop some level of endurance, of which I currently, apparently, have none.

On Sunday, instead of going for my walk/run I went for a walk with my very pregnant sister. She is six feet tall, and prior to her pregnancy her strides were something my 5'7" couldn't always keep up with. Sunday she kept telling me to slow down, something I'm used to hearing from my shorter, slow friends, but not from her, and I know it's wrong - she is pregnant, but this is probably the only time that I will ever be faster than her at anything. She, in addition to volleyball, played soccer and ran track, so whenever I've complained about running she has always had something to say.

I have no intention of paying for a gym membership, and as I said, the gym is totally fake. So, slowly, but steadily, I'll hopefully be able to develop a respectable running habit. Though, I'm totally going to stop if certain parts of my body start to shrink. I like my body as is, I would just like to be able to run a mile without falling over after.

Just Say No

If you grew up in the late eighties or nineties, you are probably familiar with the show Captain Planet. You may even have collected the plastic rings and used your "powers" against the opposite sex during recess, or in your "fort" that was conveniently located in your mother's flowerbed - right next to the hose, otherwise known as POWER OF WATER!

I love this show. I watched it before going to school most days while I ate my Kix. This was during kindergarten or maybe the first grade. This was also while a person very close to me was doing drugs and a dealer lived across the street. This dealer later was put into prison on several different drug related charges, and later his wife (now ex-wife) and whoever was out of prison got the kids - two of them, one special needs. This is relevant because my sister babysat for them, and sometimes while this couple was fighting the kids would come to my house and my mom would act as a mediator while another neighbor called the cops. Though, the cops were there on a very regular basis, and I remember them parking behind my house, hopping the fence, running through my yard and across the street the night that these neighbors were finally busted. My backyard conveniently ran up to the edge of a major road.

This said, the conversation in my house was always very hush, hush regarding drugs. My parent's never explicitly said to not do them. They did say that alcohol was bad, but I guess they just figured I wasn't the type of kid to do drugs. they were right to a certain degree, I don't make quick decisions for the most part. I usually do research, think things through, and do my best to make educated choices.

Well, there was this one Captain Planet episode. You may have seen it. It's called "Mind Pollution." In the wake of the "Just Say No" campaign, this was created:





And it completely traumatized me.

I smoked pot for the first time in the woods with a tin-foil bowl Thanksgiving weekend of my Junior year of high school. And I didn't like it. It was something that I had read about and been exposed to before, but not something that I associated with "hard" drugs, or even as a gateway drug due to it's lack of everything. People that smoked it weren't generally moody, they didn't "crave" it, and were generally nicer to be around, if not hungry. It wasn't something that destroyed lives. And now it's not something that I do, I have never bought it, I don't own any sort of smoking device, and I really don't have the lung capacity for it to really do much for me.

When it came to all other drugs, this episode always came to mind. All I can think about are zombies who will exchange their possessions for a fix. I have never been interested in "experimenting" and know myself well enough, and my family's medical history well enough, to know that I have an addictive personality, and I'm already border-lined paranoid - drugs would just push me over the edge and I'd land in some mental hospital.



This isn't to say that I don't know people who have experimented, and still do, that are perfectly sane. They have steady jobs. They pay their bills. They're contributing citizens, but they also know that I'm really not down with being in eyesight of someone doing lines, and I'd prefer the acid kids to be in the opposite corner, and I'm only going to worry if I know that you've ever tried crystal meth or heroin.

I am scared of drugs. And owe it all to Captain Planet.





(Even now, I can hardly stand to watch this episode, though I do appreciate how poorly they interpreted DC.)

Nineteen, Once and Never Again

I have been twenty for exactly one week. It's really such a crap birthday. I mean, the only thing that makes it at all distinguishable is that I am no longer considered a teenager. Though I have never really felt like a teenager, and I've always looked older than I am - it's just all finally catching up with me. BUT I still can't drink in public or go to certain venues/events. Lame.

In reflection upon my nineteenth year, I have decided it was complete shit. Though, I have grown a lot in the past year, found out a lot about myself and all that other David Copperfield kind of crap. Richmond has had a lot to do with it to. I no longer hate this city, but I am much happier in DC as those who have spent time with me in both can attest.

I am a generally outgoing person, and meeting people that are worthwhile is so much easier in DC. I can go out on any given night there and meet someone new, and they'll be interesting, pursuing something they are passionate about and maintain a list of hobbies that keep them busy at nights and on weekends. Not to mention, the boys. The boys know how to treat a girl. Chivalry still exists there, and it's not passe, it's not old fashioned, it's traditional and not at all sexist.

When I go out in Richmond, it's usually to a party, and everyone there is there with their three best friends and they only interact among each other, but call it being social. They are the most unsociable people in the most social situations. Though, in their defense, most of them grew up in the Northern Virginia suburbs or the Virginia Beach areas and think it's "weird" to randomly start talking to the first person you see at a party. This works in DC, anywhere in DC. But imagine (humor me) that you are twenty again and that you are the only one that isn't excessively awkward, but because you're not, it seems as though you are. And then later when you mention it to someone they call you the awkward one. Richmond is awkward.

In the last year I have learned to be more tactful. This may surprise you, and in the company of those that I feel comfortable being myself completely I still say things without filtering them, but around those that I meet for the first time and in certain people equations and in certain public forums, I have learned to keep certain opinions and thoughts to myself. Though, for those that appreciate my honesty, they may notice my being more polite than usual and ask what I'm really thinking. Eleana does this a lot. She always acts shocked when I give her compliment and insists that surely there is something to criticize. There usually is, but I've been making a conscious effort to not be so critical. Richmond doesn't really allow or appreciate criticism. It has everything to do with how "open minded" everyone is. And that whole chivalry thing that still exists elsewhere, that would never fly here. Ever. I cannot count how many conversations I have had with people about dating that end with us wholeheartedly disagreeing about what is and isn't appropriate on a bonafide first date.

Being raised Mormon, I have been indoctrinated all my life about women's and men's roles in society. And while i disagree with most of what I was taught, I do believe that whoever asks someone on a date should pay for it, and I like it when a man walks on the street side of the sidewalk, and I like having doors opened for me. And flowers. (If there is anyone reading this that is unaware of how much I love flowers please read this and know that nothing in the world makes me happier than yellow roses.) Boys in Richmond are not straight. They are all slightly gay. All of them have had some sort of homosexual experience. And that doesn't bother me in the least, what bothers me is when I get flack for not being into girls at all. Somehow my lack of "experimenting" makes me less of a person. It's their indecision that irritates me. Many of my male friends have all been "celibate" this week and polyamorous the next. I have kissed one girl, and that was a friend who drunkenly, and quite literally, threw herself at me. And it was not something I enjoyed. I like boys.

And even the concept of marriage, I don't know that it's natural or that I even want to get married, though I do know I want to eventually have children, and marriage usually goes along with that. But I have had arguments with people who refuse to acknowledge that it works for some people and that it's not the most absurd concept they've ever heard of or been exposed to. Again, because I was raised in a Mormon household, I feel that I am more receptive to both points of view. It the whole being "open" to countercultual norms while being staunchly against things that are considered mainstream. Maybe it's just because I'm a journalism major, but I believe in trying to maintain objectivity in all things. While I certainly agree more with Keith Olberman than Glen Beck, I'll watch both. I even listen to AFR sometimes...but mostly for the nuts that call in to share a scripture they think qualifies the Iraq war or Obama being from Kenya.

Nineteen made me appreciate the middle, being the youngest and feeling old, but being naive. It gave me a lot of time alone to ponder and to realize that being self-aware is more important than most things. And while I'm naive about most things, I learned a lot of lessons this year, and I wasn't happy about most of them at the time. But, I wouldn't change it. Not in the least.

So, here's to Year 20. I think it's going to be better and bigger and more important than the last.