The Track: Satan's 7th Circle of Hell

I hate gym class.

It's the worst class in the whole wide world.

I silently whimpered to myself as I awkwardly laced my feet into the clunky, boyish tennis-shoes. My mother had bought them for me for the new school year; they smelled like the inside of a sports store, which translated to intense dread and terror.

Usually, we have to run around cones and play stupid games with balls or flags. I would have to race across the floor--shoes squeaking, trying not to fall--with pointy elbows flying and kneecaps pumping. One time, during Kick-Ball, when all eyes were on me, I charged at my stupid rubber foe for all I was worth. I closed my eyes and kicked so hard I almost got whip lashed. Then everybody laughed. When I opened my eyes, I saw with horror that the ball stood motionless beside me and my left shoe was spinning toward the ceiling.

Today, however, was not a Kick-Ball day. Nor was it a Dodge-Ball day. Dodge-Ball day was a hellish eternity of my skinny 8 year old body being abused and pelted by the more athletic boys and girls, in which I would have to escape to the edge of the room and sit with the other losers who couldn't defend themselves, where I would gratefully play with my shoe laces or pretend to ice skate with my fingers until Coach B blew her whistle and started a new game.

Rather, today was a Mile day. The third graders were herded outside of the crisp air-conditioned building, and left to the brutal mercy of Mother Nature's hot-flashes. The interminable menopause of the Texas Deity--a blazing 110 degrees painfully magnified by the blackness of the rubber Track. We were told by our decrepit, vulture-like teachers (who rested in the shade with a couple cans of soda) that the Track was only one quarter of a mile, but we all knew they lied. The thing stretched for years and years, burning through my new shoes, dampening my socks and scourging my bare feet. On the far end of the Track, the elementary school could be seen through the wobble of heat waves. An ugly oasis of brick. I would squish it between my fingers (one eye shut tight) and imagine squeezing out the cold of the air conditioning and rubbing it all over my flushed and dehydrated body.

The worst part about the Track was the smell. It stunk like melted rubber. Tiers that that be caught on fire by the rays of the sun, under the magnifying lens of the atmosphere. The scent would stick in my nose and make my tummy hurt at lunch, in which case I'd push away my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or squish it in the bag and stab holes in it with my fingers.

After all of the kids completed four laps around the Track--and could prove it with four freshly punched holes in our exercise tickets, we were allowed to go back inside and make the greatly desired stop at the drinking fountain. I'd wait in line, with all of the other sweaty third graders, for the chance to gulp down as much water as humanly possible in an appropriate amount of time.

Water was never so desirable, sweet, or quenching, as it was after the Track was through with me.

I heard my vent go "Hwhhhhhhh" and I wrote this:

The north-easterly wind blows through the sand crusted canyons, occasionally stirring the particles and loosening the bond of over one million years. Soon, there will be nothing left. All is silence but for the steady hollow blow, landing dry upon my ears as if I could hear the echo of civilization evaporate from the cracked rock of the earth. No more. Just the solid hum of wind decomposing monuments of time, like the hum of bees muffled by hands over ears--pressing the sound away. To be smaller. Strange, how such a tiny noise--the reverb of wind through arches of rock and the microscopic tinging of animate particles, dancing along the edge of the canyon--can be painful. I press harder against my ears to make it stop. Sand in my eyes, tears fall. Dust in my throat, cannot make noise. I stomp, but my weight is insignificant against the vastness of the desert earth--one stomping human being on the crust of the planet; it is absorbed immediately by the thirsting sand. I yell silently, but nothing is added or subtracted from the dying voice of wind. Not a ripple of sound across the wide sea of atmosphere as there is no receptive end but the two beneath my white fists.
I sink into the bed prepared for me: sand and stone. The earth rumbles. Years go by, then finally, and with mercy, the volcano erupts with the life breath of the inner earth--hydrogen-sulfide--and I fall asleep.

And so this is Christmas....

Alas, I find myself pondering Christmas in the last 45 minutes of its existence. I have been poisoned with sugar and my little brother is currently shooting darts at my head with his new NERF gun.

"And I've got refills! Three refills, actually!" Weston gloats, a pinched twinge of levity in his mezzo-soprano voice--- while loading yellow spongy darts with purple suction cups.

Seconds later, my room turns into a circus.

My mother enters and splashes onto my water bed in a glorious fanfare, ruining the tautness of my tidy blankets.

Ansel, my older brother enters. Tossing his puzzles pieces in the air, he says "I finished it!! Ooops..."

Erika exeunts to my father's stentorian beckons, with a dangerous flicker in her eye and a low threatening growl.

Alone, and surrounded by the commotion of my family, I determinedly peck at my key board and will vocabulary to flutter through my fingers.


*********************************

Alas,
nearly twenty minutes have passed since ere the asterisks. Ansel challenged me to put together a 3-D puzzle, in which the quizzical wooden zig-zags warped and wrapped about my brain, both frustrating and delighting me (but mostly the former), in my attempts to fashion the thing into its spherical conclusion. Every now and then I felt pulled to give into my primitive lust to cast it upon the ground and shout unintelligible troll curses at the obnoxious puzzle pieces, but I retained this urge--if only to prove to my family once and for all that I am not altogether lacking in my left-brain capabilities (for which I have been ruthlessly labeled).

It is 12:02 am.
In my puzzling reverie, I let slip the remaining remnants of Christmas Day and have passed unknowingly into the realm of post Christmas.

This side of Christmas holds much danger and mystery: My ACTF acting competition, my new work schedule, a new semester...the year 2010.

I watch the shimmers of red and green smear into nonexistence as the magic of Christmas is rubbed away by the mere separation of two minutes.

Fare thee well, Christmastide; oh sugar filled glut of holiday, with your joyous laughs and lingering moments of revelry and laziness. I shall think of you later with a greater fondness, whence you harden in my memory, and drop like a ruby --my 20th Christmas-- into my mindful collection.

Christmas Eve Eve Interview

With Christmas trees glimmering with deep reds and greens and fuzzy blues--in every window and along the M45 in Allendale, I recognize that Christmas Day will inevitably come, only to depart again for another 365 days. The jolly spirit will disintegrate into the irritations of mundane reality, in which dreams do not always come true and depleted bank account must be faced.

As a twenty-year old,I am well aware that Christmas is not what it was when I was a child--I cannot experience the bliss of innocent selfishness nor the thrill of magic found in an empty plate of cookies by the fireplace, on Christmas morning.

Christmas for me has changed. It retains the wonder in its truest sense, but the feelings have altered as I have grown older; I must admit, amidst the glittering tinsel and blinking lights, I sense a fragment of melancholy.

In an attempt to refresh that childish spark of Christmas excitement, I interviewed my nine year old brother, Weston.

Our interview took place after he should have been in bed, but before he brushed his teeth.

He started off with saying, "11:14pm means..." (He paused to count on his fingers and stare at a spot on the ceiling) "16 minutes until Christmas Eve." Through the course of our little discussion, he promptly informed me every time a minute ticked by, bringing us closer to Christmas Eve--and thusly Christmas day. His excitement shone through his physical rambunctiousness, and quickness to lean over my laptop to see what I was typing.

Weston said that his excitement for Christmas could fill the whole cardboard box that the new microwave came in (which was the largest parcel he could think of), that he had turned into a submarine earlier in the evening with the help of scissors and scotch tape.

I asked him what he wanted for Christmas, and he replied with a loud, monotonous "Uhhhhh..." followed by an example of his socially instilled reception of consumerism,in the midst of total innocence: "I want that X-wing--that $50 dollar x-wing!!" Then in a booming voice he added,"It's 13 minutes until Christmas Eve!"

I asked the nine-year old to describe Christmas morning. He said, "I just jump out of my bed--I don't get out of my pajamas--I just get out of bed..Check my stocking, eat breakfast, and wait for you guys to wake up. Then we open the big presents." The latter part of the quote was illustrated with a sweeping arm gesture and round saucer eyes.

"12 minutes until Christmas Eve!" he screeched in afterthought.

Next, I inquired about his favorite part of Christmas (aside from opening up presents. He articulated a series of stalling interjections as he pondered a question he had never given much thought. "Umm-ummy-um-um-um...the whole thing?...Including opening presents."

Then it was the tough question. Does Santa Clause Exist? He quieted in embarrassed meditation and finally said, "I don't know..." What do your friends say? He replied, "yes and no..." Weston, on the break of double-digits, has found himself in the inevitable quandary of Santa's existential reality. I could see the wheels turning in his little head, plotting ways to stay up all night on Christmas Eve to catch either Santa Clause--or our parents--in the act of delivering presents below the tree. Good luck to him. (In my day, I could never manage to stay awake long enough).

Finally, I asked Weston to close his eyes and imagine himself in 42 years from now, waking up on Christmas Day. What will Christmas be like, then?

"Well..." he said after serious consideration, "I would weigh a lot with all of my hairs, and how fat my butt was...I won't get as many presents as I would when I was a kid...I'd get like a foot spa and a tie...I'd rather not have a tie--how about a tie-fighter?! Or a time machine?! I would go back in time to when I was ten years old..." He paused dramatically to do justice to what he just said, then exclaimed, "And there's seven minutes to Christmas Eve!!"

Though he was not consistent in his verb tenses and his verbal sentence structure was awkward to type, I found some wisdom in his youthful words. Rather than submitting to the mundane boredom that can easily accompany age, I should use this time of year for an intentional relapse into childhood. Why can't it be magic for me, too? I'm not too old, just yet.

Tomorrow night, I shall don my footie pajamas and dream about whatever sugar plumbs are--and rejoice with my kid brother in the pile of presents and filled stockings on Christmas morning.

After all, there is only 23 hours and two minutes until Christmas Day.

I might as well get excited now.

Dust.

It was a dim corridor.

A drab carpet that reeked of decades past winded through the mall passage ways and branched off into various depressing stores, all of which were almost completely empty. A florescent light buzzed and mannequins beckoned headlessly from the surrounding windows, their fingers curled grotesquely behind freckled pains. We passed into one of such shops and floated through isles of hanging fabrics and quizzical frocks.

Submerging ourselves deeper into the artificial lighting, my sister and I perceived another human being. He loitered about, behind the counter, and killed time by arranging and rearranging the display. Our presence did not disturb the dusty old man, nor do I believe we could have. It was as if he had long given up on receiving costumers and had resigned himself to perpetual preparation, performing menial tasks that could be done and redone--all for the sake of this thing that would never come. The old man had forgotten the sound of footsteps--the sound shoes make as they pass softly from the retro carpet to land (lightly scuffing)on the hard floor of the shop. He did not look up. Not once.

Meeting eachother's glance, my sister and I silently agreed to leave.

Perhaps it was the intoxication of the flickering light of the artificial sky, or perhaps it was the freakish tauntings of the freakish display mannequin--but upon turning around, the room seemed to stretch at least three fold the distance we covered walking in. The opening seemed to be the arch of a distance mirage.

A Random Thought

Someday I am going to have a baby. And that baby will be a boy. And that boy will be just like Henry David Thoreau.

He will be an eccentric forest dweller who writes poetry and reads wood chips.

And I will be a proud mama.

I am much obliged to don shallow decency

I was puzzled and somehow, deeply wounded, when the ice slushed beneath my laced boots and steeped the hem of my dress in frigidity. It seemed to move through my heavy skirts, passed my bodice, and into my heart--which froze promptly upon contact.

To the tone of the church bells about Eliot's pulpit, I perceived Mr. Hollingsworth (once promised to me in an unofficial but nevertheless sacred engagement) arm in arm with the young Priscilla. Eyes sparkling like the puddles she hopped over, Priscilla melted like a snowflake into Mr. Hollingsworth's half embrace.

I might have stared a bit too long for decency, but then again, what I did next wasn't very decent.

Pretending to retrieve a hair pin, I stooped and slipped off a soggy boot, then hurled it with all of my might. She made the most lovely noise when it struck her in the face, but I must admit that I missed. I had been aiming for him.

My Secret for Memorizing Lines

My fan base has importuned me long enough. I shall reveal it--but to you, only, who are my most dear and adoring fans of the blogish realm.

I have practically memorized my 13 pages of lines without allotting it specific time, and that was done with a careful observation to all of the time I waste staring into space.

I have put my time to better use...
1. While I'm staring at my alarm clock in the morning, trying to remember what day it is.
2. While I'm brushing my teeth and washing my face.
3. While I'm showering.
4. While I'm stirring my oatmeal
5. While I'm blow drying my hair and putting on make-up

I have intelligently delineated my morning routine and have turned it into a rehearsal.

It is effective in varying amounts, but I persist nevertheless.

Of course, I could only fit 4 lines on my alarm clock (so as to not block the time) and I had to laminate the pages that go in the shower. I've always found doing lines and blow drying my hair at the same time to be difficult--that is, until I discovered that a simple piece of scotch tape would hold the sheet of paper to the wall right next to the mirror.

If you open up the right most section of my bathroom mirror, you will see page two and three of my script. This works really well, except I've discovered that brushing teeth and articulating can be treacherous: flying specks of toothpaste may flit in an eye or two, and there is always the chance of choking on the toothbrush. I have come close a couple of times, but it's all in the name of art, and art is no good without pain/risk and/or stinging eyes.

Though it is an echoing and rather splashy environment, the shower is positively a joyous place to memorize lines. Only, I would recommend informing your roommates if you are going to try it, because they might think you're talking to somebody in the shower in which case they may become jealous of your casual intimacy with other people who you don't even live with and if you can eat their cereal and occasionally sneak some of their ice cream, your roommates might wonder why you don't bother to get to know them better--let alone share a breakfast conversation with them if you make time for other people when you're in the shower. (To avoid all of this, simply inform the roommates that you are merely talking to yourself, and you, as a theatre major, are exempt from all conventional definitions of sanity).

The hardest time to memorize lines is while putting on eye liner. It doesn't work, so don't try it. Just...don't. Lathering facial lotion and foundation works moderately well, but memorizing while stirring oatmeal is 65% more effective. I simply need to open up the cabinet to my left and lo and behold! Page 7 and 8 of my script!


In this fashion, I have memorized my lines in short little intervals. I'd say it was moderately successful, but here are the down falls.

1.I memorized my lines a bit out of order
2. My roommates have read the sections of the play I've taped up, and now they know what happens.
3. Condensing my time in this method (and not allowing time for my own thoughts) has made me go slightly insane. Of course, one must weigh the pros and cons of such things. Sacrificing sanity is not the right choice for everybody, but if you're an actor, it might get you places.

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed hearing of my secret line-memorizing methods.

Microwave, A History

Microwaves were discovered in the 12th century A.D. by Lord Henrik Byzantinhead. He had been galloping across the Norwegian countryside when his horse toppled against an oddly shaped cube stone. Lord Byzantinhead dismounted and observed the strange phenomenon. He was astounded to find that the cube had a swinging portion that open and closed, revealing a tiny spacious interior. He loaded his discovery among his other parcels and brought it to the king.

During his presentation to the king, Lord Byzantinhead referred to the strange object as a "microwave," for he had named it after his horse, "Microwava."

The microwave was held in the court of the Norwegian King for many decades; it was used to store his most precious documents until 1178, when the handle was poisoned and the king dropped dead upon touching it.

Three months later, another microwave was found in the mountainous terrain of Bavaria. Over the next couple centuries, at least 45 more were discovered.

It wasn't until the pinnacle of the Dark Ages in circa 1330 that the use of the microwave was realized, in which case a peasant had the idea to plug its cord into an outlet and toss in a piece of raw mutton. When the microwave lit up and 4 and a half minutes later, the raw mutton emerged, well-done and bubbling with gravy, the peasant was burned at the stake for witchcraft.

After this incident, the holders of microwaves were forced to go underground, as microwaves were banned by the Church. Anyone suspected of illegal microwave usage was to be hanged until dead, or drowned until drowned.

During the English Renaissance, Queen Elizabeth banned the Catholic church and liberated microwave usage. For the first time in almost 300 years, people of all classes were allowed to heat their mutton and lamb chops in microwave ovens.

We have come a long way in microwave usage, since Lord Byzantinhead's discovery, the nameless peasant's death, and the re-institution during the Renaissance. During the 20th century, organic microwaves were replicated by the grace of technology, and have been made available to the masses.

I would encourage each and every one of you to appreciate the long plight of the microwave oven, next time you heat your Easy Mac. Hug the electrical-wavy-apparatus close to your breast, stroke its numberish buttons, and whisper something affectionate.

Some may say that microwave oven cause cancer, but I would say that it is your fear and ignorance that gives you cancer, in which case, you deserve to die.

Thank you for your time.

πατέρας

Cold. Th earth stretches like an endless desert and sand billows into the sky like a heavy cloud. I taste the dust of the pyramids in my mouth. I choke. My back breaks lifting the blocks of stone on top the many--reaching into the sky--reaching for divinity--trying to touch it with the pitiful point of man's greatest construction of time.

My hands are caked in mud, the scent of straw stains my skin. Blood runs down my back, streaming down the razed streaks--disfigured with insufficient healing.

Water--I crave water! Throat is parched like the cracked earth below me.

Forgive us our sins.

Below me lie my brothers and sisters. My mothers and fathers. Their bodies of salt and shrouded clothes. Their lives broken by the greed of Man--crushed by stone, beaten with flesh, exposed, molested, emptied into the earth.

Father Father

I roam the earth with feet that have trod many miles. The miles have worn my face and hardened my skin, crystalled with salt. My eyes see the struggle and the pain--perpetual--ahead.
A world without end.

Father

My begging hands are ignored, scoffed at, slapped, beaten, crushed.

I am used as an animal--labor--toil--sex--dirt

Why do they steal my clothes, rip me, scourge me, crucify me

Thorns--I fall. I writhe and slip in the blood pouring from my wounds.

Stinging--pain--stench

We gather together in a dim room with a low ceiling. The door is closed and the candles are lit. There is no time for the bread to rise--we must eat it now--for we must flee. The bread is ripped and passed. It is sweet and soft on my tongue, I press it to my mouth and devour it. It fills me, slows the knives of hunger. We pass the bowl. The wine spreads warmly through my body. Magma--burning and shaping. I bring the trembling bowl to my brother's lips. He drinks deeply and passes it, too.

Father.

Hot. The earth stretches wide and far.

A world with out end.

Rachael descends into the abyse of nihilism

I am truly wondering if words exist in one's mind as drops of water in a pool. If too many are used at once--say, are evaporated quickly by the selfish sun on a sweltering afternoon, will there be any drops of words left for tomorrow's refreshing sip?

I have used too many of my words, too quickly, and my Brain is currently buzzing with the interminable wasteland of parched nothingness. I cannot link two thoughts together to save my life. I can not comprehend and intelligibly convey this essay I have read twice through because the 11 page paper of yesterday zapped me of my loquacious hydration.

That is why I have turned to this blog. In an attempt to irrigate my mental capacity and to coax it into working for me. I am tired of fighting with my sentance structre, my grammer, my concept. Can't we just work together--you and I--so that we can achieve that blissful utopia known as sleep? (My red-lined eyes can attest to its long absence.)

In absolute desperation, I perform a rain-dance of metaphores, of similies, of the sacred ability to formulate analogy. I will give you my first born son, of god of the English major, if only you have pity on me and grace me with words...

Somebody Stop Me Before I Eat My Classmate

Lateness is frustrating. In acting classes, especially. They are so unpredictable! One can not simply walk into a black box and slip into the familiar flow of page turning and note-taking. I have no idea what to expect.

Pushing open the heavy door of the Performance Center classroom, I find myself in room full of humanoid animals. After a cursory glance and seeing most of my classmates on all fours, I assume we are cats for the day.

I slip into my cat. (It is not difficult as I occasionally stalk about my house as a cat and meow at my roommates). After a bit of investigation, I realize the population is not merely feline. This realization does not bother me as I am too preoccupied with grooming myself, but after a while, I spot something that does catch my attention..

There is a bird in the room. My ears perk. I freeze. Several minutes pass as I trace its delicate movement with my glassy green eyes, the fire of my stare burning into its delicate feathers.

Secretly, I calculate the formula to kill. Space to cover divided by pressure to suffocate. With a pinch, the serrated tips of my claws emerge. Like water, I slither in an out of the clutter along the wall, keeping in shadow (save the orbs of my glowing eyes), fixed upon my prey. All else fades into shadow. Just me and the pathetically twittering bird. The quivering feathers that hypnotize and strangle my attention.

Silently, breathing smoothly through my nose, I creep closer with the ease of rolling water and my hunger tumbles in my throat like a purr. The space is right—and I have not been sensed. I flatten against the cold floor—my muscles coiled to...POUNCE. In a flash of movement and flutter of wings, I land.

Emptiness.

I feel my back arch and hair stand on end, hunger not satiated. With liquid furry, I hunt my prey through the crowd of dogs, gorillas, hedgehogs and other felines. That bird is mine.

My steps are careful. Muscle glides across bone, below coat, around absence of collar bone. My tail curls about the air and the soft current tickles my whiskers. Every dust particle, every insect in every corner of the room is visible to my sharp eyes. I easily find the bird. The hunt is on.

"The Middle of No-Where Has Been Keeping Secrets"

Having BBC News as my home page provides me with daily bits of information. It is incredible what I can learn just by the headline, as I quickly change the page to check my email.

Today, however, a headline caught my eye and demanded further exploration. "Ancient papers reveal legacy of Timbuktu." They discovered, that in this dusty city (referred to by the West as "the middle of no-where") thousands upon thousands of ancient written records have been discovered, locked away in cellars. Check it out!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8387544.stm

False Alarm.

It had been a long day. Too long.

Kevin Walters squinted at the reflective road signs as his blurry head lights cut through the night fog. 72nd Avenue. That's right.

The tuning of his tires crunched softly on the dirt road and Walters longed for a Big Mac and a Slurpee from the Admiral. Unfortunately, Walters had promised his sister Tina that he'd pick up the old Buick and bring it to the lot. He grunted and drummed his thick fingers on the steering wheel. Drifting into a fantasy about being in a metal band with long wild dreadlocks, beer, and babes, Kevin rolled passed his sister's house. At the stop-ahead sign, Kevin's stomach growled and jerked him into reality. He pulled into the nearest driveway to turn around, then cursed aloud when he remembered the long trailer attached to the hitch.

Rather than jack-knifing the trailer and becoming stuck, Kevin carefully backed out and rode the quarter mile to Tina's house, in reverse.

Little did he know, Walters caused quite a commotion. The driveway he had randomly selected belonged to a particular family that was hyper-sensitive about trailer pulling up to their house in the dead of night, on a Saturday.

Within the dimly glowing windows of the driveway's house, the youngest daughter shouted an alert to her three siblings. "Holy crap! They're at it again!"

Four pairs of eyes traced the headlights across the bay windows until the pricks of light disappeared behind the trees of the neighbors' property.

"They're moving backward--they're going to park!"

In 3.5 seconds, all four Pineiro kids bounded into the dark, aggressively tugging on jackets and hopping into shoes. "If they put a couch on our roof, I'm going to punch them in the face!" the nine year old chirped, boldly. He bounded down the driveway and dissapeared into the fog. "Weston--get back here!" Rachael hissed in a stage whisper. The glow of the truck's headlights was expanding.

"He's coming back! Everybody hide!" The four young Pineiros hid behind various shaped trees--the nine year old behind a shrub.

"Don't move! Be quiet!"

In the silence of his truck, Walters debated between a Micky D's and Taco Bell. He couldn't make up his mind. Because of his lusty fixation on greasy wrapped treats, Kevin failed to notice the three oddly shaped trees, and one oddly shaped shrub, watching intently as his truck went by.

"Are they going to put a Buick on our roof?"

As the trailer-hitched truck continued passed the house and made a left onto Filmore, the Pineiros turned to go inside, their aggression dissipating into the night.

There's No Place Like Rome...

Every now and then I feel as if reality warps and blends into the fabric of another quality. Perhaps it is dream. Or perhaps it is the recognition of a possible higher reality. Last Wednesday, I experience this warp, so to speak, during a presentation about studying abroad. I had been paying attention to the Director of the International program in a plane somewhere between mild interest and scoffing cynicism. I am a junior with a newly declared double major with English and Theatre, and I expect to graduate on time. My disposition was that I had passed up the opportunity to partake in the financially-crippling-over-seas program long ago. But as the speaker went on, I felt the floor beneath me lift and the ceiling above me plunge. In a dizzying lurch, I experienced a paradigm shift.

It was the program about Rome that caught my interest and shook the foundation of my career goals. Attached to the program was the opportunity to intern with Vatican media. This concept of being able to write or perform (in a sense) on the radio, in association with Papal news, infiltrated my imagination and mixed—almost chemically—into my bloodstream. My perception of its affect on me started as a dull questioning, but as the minutes went by, I felt it exponentially. Now I'm on fire. It's almost obsessive. Why not me? I could live and study in Rome—the home of the Catholic Church—a cradle to the art of theatre—I could be there next year at this time.

Living, studying, and interning in Italy, a mere five miles from the Vatican, would incredible on so many levels--as a Catholic, as a student--as a human being. The program is a semester long and operates as a partnership with the Thomas More College. We would be staying at the Villa Serenella monastery and I would be taking at least thirteen credit hours of Humanities, Theology, Poetry, and Art and Architecture.

As I do not yet have an articulate career plan, I am still dreaming up possibilities. The idea of working in conjunction with Catholic Media is an intoxicating prospectus—especially if it's in Rome. As a devout Catholic, a study abroad trip so steeped in the faith would help me develop on a personal level—inspiring me to further connect my degree with my faith—and hopefully shaping me into a powerful asset to the church. I want this trip to help direct me toward my destined vocation.

Unfortunately, there are many things that may stop me. I have estimated that it would cost me $15,500 in all--in which I would have to sell both of my kidneys, a lot of plasma, everything I own, and I'd probably have to rob a bank or two.
There are a number of other reasons that I shan't bother you with, but my advisor advised me not to go, and my father is convinced that the delay of my graduation for the sake of electives is not an intelligent decision.

In light of stark reality, my infatuation with the idea of Rome has paled to a wan heart-break. It is possible to go, but when I narrow my sight to financial and economic reality, I realize that it is not exactly the best thing, strategically speaking, to go.

Seventh Year,-- Dizzy.

"You're my only friend, Pidgeoto."

The little girl kissed the young chicken on its head and placed it on her lap. She gently kicked her legs, making the swing drift back and forth as she hummed a tune.

The sky was blue and clear--a blanket of silk over the Texas horizon. Haystacks and stubby trees dotted her sight, turning shades darker as the sun melted in the west and the vapor moon condensated on the glass shell of the atmosphere.

The sky dimmed and shimmered; less of a blue, now, and more of an azul--or an azúcar. Sugar. The sky must taste like sugar, thought the little girl aloud to her feathery companion. What do you think? Pidgeoto fluffed himself and cocked his head to the side.

Between the gravitational pull of the moon and the swing, the little girl imagined herself flying in the air--soaring with Pidgeoto nearby. Higher and higher into the sugar sky until the swing set and the haystack and the trees turned into specks--tiny chocolate chips on the cookie of Texas as the earth swallowed the sun and the icicle moon glowed brighter.

Oops, I'm a kid again

I'd like to think that I am not as disconnected with family life as I probably am. Or perhaps I just have unrealistic expectations of myself.

I knew I was going home this Sunday evening, and I thought I could accomplish a couple simple things within the familiar walls of my Allendale house. My goal to finish the lingering page and conclusion of my Transcendental term paper might have been a bit steep. I also wanted to prepare my directing rehearsal for tomorrow afternoon and perhaps write 2 or 3 journal entries. Ha.

With thoroughly scholarly intentions, I peregrinated away from my college roommates to my family home. 45 minutes later, I found myself giving my nine year old brother a piggy back ride while he pressed his hands over my eyes and mischievously shouted directions for me to stumble to. I ran into the refrigerator, my parent's bed, the stairs, and a closet door--to his utter amusement.

Somehow, I was even recorded for my sister's video blog with my hair brushed in front of my face with goggles over my "eyes," acting like an alien.

What's wrong with me? One moment I'm an adult, and the next moment, I'm inside of a closet, held captive by my kid brother (singing a Mario song), trying to manipulate my freedom with a tickly duster.

I have responsibilities! I'm a junior in college and I'm supposed to have a novel read by tomorrow and I need to contemplate my thoroughly passionate and culturally riveting senior project. Also, my exams are in three short weeks...

Will I be able to make significant strides surrounded by my family, if I live at home next year--where I will probably find myself with underwear on my head, scooping out bowls of ice cream singing the "Bert and Ernie" song from Sesame Street? Can I say that my family brings out the best in me?

...

I might have an incomplete paper for tomorrow's class, and I might not be completely on top of tomorrow's rehearsal, but at least I shared a couple hours with my family (and some silly memories with my rapidly growing baby brother).

When I look back on my life as a young adult--what will be more important?

A Graphic Genesis?! Oh my.

I just listened to an audio news bit on BBC.com about the publication of a graphic illustrated book of Genesis; I found it disturbing.

The book is explicit and has an "adult supervision" label (which shouldn't really come as a shock to those who have read the Old Testament). Listening to the artist's comments from the audio bit, it was really apparent that he didn't have actual Christian intentions. He said something like "The thought that people actually took this stuff seriously for thousands of years...I find it so crazy."

He sounded like a complete idiot, but I will give him props for something.

The graphic novel will illuminate some truths about the book of Genesis that may be typically ignored. The Old Testament is incredibly violent--the text doesn't seek to hide anything--it's all kind of out there.

I find the Old Testament a bit hard to understand, and thusly, I enjoy discussion on the topic. I think the worst thing to do with information--especially scripture--is to just blindly accept it if you don't understand it. Granted, there are things we just can't wrap our finite human minds around, but we can always ask questions and seek truth.

St. Thomas Aquinas would support seeking the truth.

The Dramatic Rendition of My Belated Return

Tossing and turning, seven hours later, I awoke with a start.

I forgot my water bottle!!!

How could I forget him? I mentally chastised myself then fell back asleep. My dreams were full of water containers of every sort: water towers, crock pots, flasks, tea kettles, cactus... There was no way to escape the guilt I felt in abandoning my friend that had been so faithful to me, throughout the past several weeks.

When I awoke, my throat was dry and my thirst unquenchable. Hurriedly, I dashed off to class and tried to think of my studies...

Theatre History.
Stage Movement.
Intro to Literature.
Work.

Around 6 O'clock in the evening, with the sun waning in its celestial arch, I snuck to the place where the brook babbles and the leaves are crunchy. My heart was racing--I experienced a wave of terror--IT WASN'T THERE!

"No! It has to be!"

I tried to imagine life without my water bottle--(I would have to get a new one!) The thought of my very own water bottle (which I typically keep by my side in waking and sleeping) being in the hands of some stranger with ill intentions, or worse yet--! In a garbage dump...oh no...the thought was too horrible to comprehend.

Just then--perhaps out of hopeful thinking, I thought--I spied a corner of maroon peeking out through nature's debris. On my hands and knees, I splashed about the crinkling cornflakes and discovered my bottle! It had burrowed under the pile of leaves for warmth!

"Ha! Ahaha!" My choked-up laughter echoed off Hruby hall and a nearby student cocked an eye brow. It didn't matter to me--I was reunited with my bottle of water!!

Joyously, I hugged the thing close to my body and promised never to leave it again.

The Dramatic Rendition of My Trifling Break-Up

"I'm sorry," said I. "I can take you no further. You see, I have too much to carry--what with juggling this loaf of bread, three pots, a pan, and a large mixing bowl."

My water bottle frowned back at me. He wasn't taking this well. I winced and tried again.

"Really, I barely have one finger to hold you with, and it's about to break off!"

The maroon plastic bottle indicated the scrape marks on its surface from the times I had dropped it and shoved it into the too small holder on my bike.

"Don't you dare pull that one on me." said I, shifting my weight awkwardly from side to side. "I can't take you any further and that's final." I felt the perspiration upon my brow. I had to have this dinner made in fifteen minutes and it simply would not do to be late.

Ignoring its silent shrieks of abandonment, I dropped my water bottle in a pile of dried leaves next to a babbling brook. Separated from the warmth of my body, it quickly snuggled up to a wooden fence nearby and wept dreadful drops of hydration.

"I'll come back--I promise!" I shouted over my shoulder.

The Nightmare

The nightmare was harsh. I awoke--startled--into the darkness of my bedroom, my damp hair clinging to my neck. It was just a dream. Relief. Thank God it was just a dream. Sinking back onto my pillow, the haunting situation threatened to creep back over my mind...

I showed up to work. Late, as usual, but I sensed something was different. For one thing, there was a giant body of water stretching across the Media Center. A sea breeze whistled through our selection of feature films and rattled through the racks of CDs. But that wasn't it. Somehow I sensed more.

The familiar energy of my boss's presence infiltrated my reception and I instinctively twitched my head toward him. Too fast. (Idiot!) It had only been 3 seconds and already I looked unnatural and foolish.

As my stylishly dressed boss rowed up to me in his gondolier, I was surprised by his smile. He was happy to see me, but after I stuttered out an overly-enthusiastic "hullo!", his smile twisted into a sneer.

Oh no! What did I do?

Then it hit me. The sea breeze was cool and chilled me all over. I was naked. Naked at work because I had forgotten to don clothing, and now my boss (who already didn't like me) is seeing me naked and sneering.

Frantically, I reached for the nearest bit of foliage--next to the de-magnatizer. I was hoping for a nicely sufficient palm leaf, but instead I pulled a dreadfully thin tangle of vines that had been scarcely clinging to the closet door.

Oh no!

My boss rolled his eyes and continued rowing through the isles of VHS, mercifully allowing me to regain my dignity.

As I scrambled about, I heard the distinctive sharp ting of the bell behind me. A patron!

After analyzing this dream from a lucid state, I can successfully delve further into my introspection, in which I can delineate the manifest and latent content of my warped psychology.

It's a bit disturbing, but mostly depressing.

It's War from here on out.

I presently find myself among the shrapnel and whizzing bullets of the concluding semester. It is at once a terrifying and masochistically exciting time, though the latter disposition may be a bit forced. (Thus, if I were to have a split personality, perhaps I would be both masochist and sadist to my own being...a disturbing thought I should promptly banish from the surface of my contemplation, lest this blog get ugly and disturbing.) Alas, I sigh and long for the day of blissful sugar cookies and sugar-plumb fairies. For the time being, I must arm myself in the battle attire of academia and feign sanity. I sit cross-legged in my warrior wigwam, emotionally naked before the fire of my laptop screen, save the painted marks hither and thither on my body of intellect, assumed to savagely bolster my energy to flow powerfully and with wild abandonment.

Soon, I shall close my eyes and fall into a deep river. A ruggedly hollowed canoe shall be my bed, and with crossed arms, I will descend in a cascade of water into my spring semester where I will hopefully find rest. Sweet rest.

Th Missing Lttr "e"

I apologiz most ardntly. A vry important key doesn't seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee333ee33

Wait a second...It's a miracle! My "e" key is working again!! OH MY GOSH!!! I can type E's!!!

Well, there goes the concept of my blog tonight. I was going to write this elaborate story to see if you guys could understand it without any of th---CRAP!! It stoppd working again!!!

Rally? For ral?

Okay, God...I wasn't complaining that you fixd my ""....Can you mak it work again? Plas?

Okay...back to plan A.

Try to undrstand this:

I wnt to a concrt today at th Mixd Tap Caf. My frind Lizzy turnd 21 and w wantd to clbrat it by sing this band she really liked. (e's back on board!)

It was called "Th Hard Lsson" ('s back out...)and thy completely rocked!(Oh my goodness key...) The lead singer had this black hair that hung to his shouldrs and strung across his fac, and his wif (who was also in th band) could play piano whil bnding backward rally far. It was imprssiv. Thir voics blndd togthr mlodiosly --his husky and manly, hr's, smoky and powrful.

During a lov song, th lad singr ddicatd th piece to all the couples in the audience, and thn brought on coupl up on stag. H askd thm what thir nams wr, and thn said he wanted to mak sur that thy wr a ral coupl. H askd thm to do somthing "Lik kiss, or somthing." Th guy kissd his girlfrind, and thn th lad singr kind of rpatd what h had just said, prssing for somthing ls...I was a bit suspicious.

Thn--and this was bautfiul--th man got down on his kn and pulld out a sparkly ring and askd his girlfrind to marry him. For a split scond, I thought it was a jok--but hr xprssion rvald that it was compltly lgit, and th guy and th singrs had plannd it out bfor th concrt.

Wow--I'd nvr sn anything lik that happn! Such tru motion--it wasn't acting--it wasn't a play! And it happnd right on th stag in front of m!

As th band finishd thir song, th coupl kissd and hld achothr, dancing slowly.

At th nd of th show, th lad singr wishd th nw coupl luck with thir livs togthr. Thn, taking his wif (th piano playr)'s hand, h said "If w can do it, you can do it!"

A Vision of Winter...

I left the warm comforts of my house, last night, to behold the most beautiful vision of nature. It was about 11:30 pm. I slid a pair of snow boots on and tugged on a light jacket that hung by the door and dashed outside. As I pushed the sliding glass door closed, I shut away the noises of the kitchen and the buzz of the thermostat, and a myriad of other noises I had not been aware of. My senses immediately shifted. Silence pressed against my ears and the cold air stung my bare skin, as I had intelligently donned a pair of cotton running shorts. Several paces through knee deep snow brought me well into the mercy of the night. My eyes adjusted to the light that the full moon produced and reflected brilliantly off the breast of the snow. I had never seen anything like it…I stood in the middle of a dazzling field of shimmering light, sparkling from the iced-over branches--whose tangled shadows wrapped softly across the earth. The glittering snow, as if millions of tiny diamonds had been crushed to a powder and accumulated here, settling peacefully in a thick layer across this frozen tundra. I turned my gaze to the sky and drank in the icy heaven. A peaceful navy blanket of atmosphere, studded with diamonds, extended above my insignificant stature to a height I could only imagine. It wrapped around the whole earth and covered every human being that ever lived. Directly above my quiet house was the full moon. A perfectly round orb of celestial radiance, brilliantly burning the reflected light of the sun into the back of my retinas. When I closed my eyes, the moon was still there in a frosty, ghostly image against my lids. I felt the miles of cold air above my physical body and the perpetually frozen vacuum of ancient space above that, and somehow I was connected to the earth and floating in heaven at the same time.

Breaking News, December 10th, 1964

King's Work is Not Yet Done
-Rachael Pineiro

Civil rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tells the world his work is not yet finished, but through the perseverance of nonviolent demonstration, King's mission of humanity will not fail.
As his slow and deliberate words rang out in the City Hall of Oslo, Norway, on the 10th of December, the magnitude of his people’s struggle settled into the consciousness of every distinguished guest in the company. King spoke of the 22 million Negros, struggling presently in the heat of injustice and indignity in the United States of America and elsewhere in the wide world. He questioned why he should receive such an award when the accomplishment of the movement is yet so premature.
Merely nine years have passed since he organized the first bus boycott, the incipience of his spirited campaign for equality, and King has found himself to be in a position of the highest prestige and honor. He is the youngest of the laureates, throughout the 20th century, to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to promoting global peace. King accepted the award with grace, but illuminated the situation in light of its position in reality: his work is far from being done.
“I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice,” he said at the commencement of his speech. The risk that King has taken in his ministry has lead to his being stabbed in 1958, and stoned, as of just last summer.
Dr. King alluded to several recent incidents which highlight the reality of the civil rights struggle: fire hose assaults, bombings, and brutal murders. He articulated the extent to which the colored person is degraded in the construction of society and the work that is yet to be done. He acknowledged the debilitating scorn his people have faced and the struggle of the movement in its cry for brotherhood, but the tenor of his speech was far from despairing.
“After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of the movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time - the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression,” he said.
Rejecting the pessimism of a non-progressive future, King’s speech bounded toward a future of optimism with the fire of possibility. He stated his refusal to despair, his refusal to believe that nations are bound to destroy one another, and his refusal to accept that men, as they are today, are not capable of fashioning the world the way it ought to be. Man, according to King, is not a powerless character in fate, unable to improve or perfect the future. His voice rang with optimism: “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
His message is not confined, only, to the people of the United States. Basing his civil rights campaign on the foundation of Christianity and the philosophies of Ghandi, King affirms that the dignity of all people will soon be realized as love and truth will inevitably succeed in the scheme of the entire world, and that this will be attained only through the persistence of non-violent ambitions.
“I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow,” he said. “I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.”
After nine years of demonstrations, fraught with multiple arrests, and with the repeated debasement of racial attacks and violent assaults, King accepted the award with a renewed air for his mission of humanity. The faith and burning optimism with which he spoke exposed his elevated expectation of mankind’s ethical capabilities, although these capabilities have not been exercised.
“I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land,” he said.
King concluded his speech, reiterating his stewardship of the award he received. The Nobel Peace Prize of 1964 belongs to every individual “to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty – and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.”

No More Miss Nice Rachael

I just had an hour and a half conversation with one of my mentors, and I have some things to say about myself.

I am a bad ass. Plain and simple.

I have a black belt in not one, but two forms of martial arts and I can break wood, cement, and watermelons with my bare hands. If a man ever tries to rape me, I know how to rip off his face and his testicles--not at the same time, but I'm sure I could work it out.

You might be wondering why I've taken such a strange turn in atmosphere and diction, but I can only reply that I've had a little bit of self realization tonight. I think the message of the great Transcendentalists has finally percolated into my brain--perhaps not in a way they would have imagined--but the substance of the matter is the same, nevertheless.

I am going to go out into the world now and do things that bad-asses do--things that I want to do, that is.

I encourage you all to do the same. Next time you are having a bad day and your self-esteem is low, just think of all the amazing things you've done--or have somebody you love tell you those things, for you. (That sentence is grammatically correct, promise.)

I'm going to write a paper. Then I'm going to direct a play. Then I'm going to conquer the freaking Amazon.

Peace.

Michigan "Promise"

I would like to briefly meditate on the state's recent repeal on a trust of financial aid.

Isn't it ironic that it was called the "Michigan Promise" and now it's been dashed? They broke their promise.

My entire vision of the government as the means toward an eventual utopia is shattered. The intrinsic trust for my government that has been instilled in me since my embryonic education in kindergarten has been violated in a most profoundly disturbing way.

Our Governor said "I promise I will give you this money." Now, she snatches it back with a snarky gleam in her eye; my promised money disappears in a puff of red smoke and a choking fiscal fume.

Indian Givers.

The Oddest Dream I've Had Yet

It was a crisp morning and the ice had not yet thawed from the brook behind the stables. I awoke earlier than usual and accomplished chopping a day's amount of fuel and hauling it from the wood field, up the hill, and into my home with the strength of my back. I got the fire started (making a mental note to purchase more matches next time I journeyed into town) and boiled water for coffee.

The house warmed and the rich scent of my Colombian roast melted through the room. Rubbing the shadow of scruff on my jaw, I rocked back in my chair and puffed heartily at my pipe. As the smoke of my exhale swirled about my head like dizzy trout in a current, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to dream.


It was the most queer dream I have ever had.

I dreamed I was a 20 year old female, living in the year 2009--quite the stretch for my imagination, but it was oddly vivid. I was of short stature, with long bonny hair and nimble little feet. I wore trousers like a man and guzzled coffee as I do when I am awake. I remember entering a large building, illuminated strangely from the inside, though it was well past dusk. I made my way to a series of glowing rectangles and sat myself down before one. My fingers moved naturally to a tray of smooth pebbles with letters stamped upon each one, individually. My little fingers began stamping away at the pebbles and lo! characters and words began emerging before me on the glowing rectangle, as if they had been slumbering behind the frost of white, and melted through to the forefront.

The stamping went on for quite some time, until I heard the sound of a click--somewhat akin to the snapping of a twig, and I awoke in a cold sweat. My fire had died out and the tobacco leafs had tumbled onto the ground, along with my pipe which lied, reposed, next to my boot.

Running my hands over my beard, I was relieved to discover I was yet a man. But the stamping sound from my dream echoed throughout the day and generated the most irking sensations.

Delighting in our Curves and Kitchens.

Feminism. I am being bombarded with feminism.

Women have never been able to make their own decisions--we have always been oppressed. The worth of a woman has always been measured in her ability to attract a man's attention and her ability to have babies. Now we should fight back--instead of "history" we should call it "herstory." Marriage is imprisonment--having babies is to submit to a man's will. We should completely deconstruct the infrastructure of civilization to make the world a woman's world--instead of having our "own piece of the pie," we need to construct a whole new pie.

Well, I don't know about you, but I just got done baking a pie. And my roommate Allyse and I ate the whole thing, but not before cleaning the kitchen and preparing homemade dinners for ourselves for the next couple nights. And, I'm wearing an ankle-length skirt.

I delight in my femininity and rejoice in my maidenhood. I love to wear pretty dresses and long skirts that flutter and flow in the wind, and I love to pick flowers and go for walks and wear my hair long. And my favorite color is pink.

I turn now to the opinions of my roommates, which would perhaps boil the blood of any of the fire-and-brimstone feminists in my college classes:

"I love under-wire bras and tampons and scrubbing the floor (on my hands and knees) with my pink latex gloves," said Allyse, after gushing about wanting to have a baby.

"I love it when a man opens a door for me or offers to carry my books or my bags...it doesn't mean that I am not a strong woman--I just don't want feminism to kill chivalry and gentlemanliness," said Ember. Then jumping on the couch and thrusting a fist in the air, she added, "Chivalry lives!"

As for myself, I have made it a goal to live up to my female ancestors by learning the traditional domestic skills of cooking, cleaning, baking, and sewing. My goal is not to attract a husband, but rather to become a better person in general. I pride myself in being well rounded, as I am equally capable of breaking a cement slab with my bare hands and whipping a guy on the grappling mat as I am capable of whipping up a kick-butt goulash.

Eve might have been made out of Adam's rib, but Adam was made out of dirt.

I just want to add that my roommates and I love men. "Manly men," Allyse adds. The more like Paul Bunyan, the better. I believe men and women should be equals in the workplace (that's a no-brainer) but just as I rejoice in femininity, I also rejoice in the masculinity that God has blessed the earth with.

Beards. Hatchets. Flannel.

Deep, sexy voices.

The strength to throw me in a swing dancing move.

These are all precious things; I tip my hat to God.

4 Easy Steps to Secure Your Home from Intruding Raptors

Okay...I just spent 45 minutes raptor-proofing the house. I know a lot of people don't do it, but really--what if the raptors attack in the middle of the night? People are always surprised when they are attacked and eaten by a dinosaur, but I am wise enough to know that in today's world, anything can happen. Anything. After everybody but me dies from the swine flu, I need to be able enough to protect myself from any sort of thing that might come my way to gobble me down--and that includes those nasty raptors.

Here's my plan in a couple easy steps. (I would encourage you to simulate this and to tell everyone you care about to do the same.)

First, I installed a simple lock chain on my front door. This might sound overly simplistic, but it will through the raptors off and it might buy you a couple moments, and every moment is precious when you are under attack by dinosaur.

Secondly, I rigged up some sweet barred pocket doors in every major entrance way: the entrance to the living room, living room to the kitchen, and the top of the stairwell. (I know this won't protect my roommate Christy, who lives down stairs, but I can only do so much).

Third--and this was kind of difficult--I dug a hole in the living room floor and stuck 438 forks (prongs up) into the musty woodwork below the floor. I then covered the gaping pit with the strip of carpet I had peeled away. It looks almost natural, so I'll be sure to warn my roommates about it before somebody falls into it. (Ember is kind of accident prone, and it would be just like her to stumble into my scarcely concealed booby-trap in the central walk way.)

The last step will only work if you have a laundry shoot, or if you are willing to construct your own laundry shoot. When all my roommates were out, I put on a slick outfit of spandex and slipped into the square shaped hole in my bathroom--which (thankfully) turned out to be a laundry shoot. (I was pretty sure it was a laundry shoot, but there as an 11% chance it could have been a swirling vortex that would suck me back in time to an age when women didn't shave their legs or have tampon--and that would be awkward--but in retrospect, I suppose it would be effective in helping me elude the dinosaurs). In the scariest 13 seconds of my life, I peregrinated through the metalic, dust-coated tunnel and landed on the cement in the basement. I think I have a minor concussion, but it's okay because I know for a fact that a full sized raptor could not follow me down that opening. And if a baby raptor gets through it, I am confident that I could punch it in the head and at least stun it.

That was all I did, and it only took 45 minutes, give or take a half hour that I might have been passed out in the basement. It wasn't difficult, so I would encourage each and everyone of you to follow my easy four-step plan to protect yourself from dinosaurs if you do, indeed, survive the H1N1 plague.

Are We Human? Or Are We Fish?

Today I sunk to the bottom of the ocean and burrowed in the murky floor of sand and sediments that had been collecting over the past several millennium; the sensation was curiously frightening and exhilarating as I could no longer use my lungs and was forced, instead, to breathe out of the pair of gills that spontaneously flared out of the side of my throat (an experience of awkwardness unequaled, even by puberty) and to swish about with the pointed tail that erupted after my legs melded together--but before my arms withered into little undulating fins that fluttered about like sea-butterflies in the muck of the ocean floor, thickening the darkness of the water.

The Orbit Room in Orbit

The mosh pit of the Orbit Room was cramp and smokey. I was being smashed into the punked-out lesbian in front of me, while being (purposefully) kicked in the legs by some high school brat behind me. I found the opening band to be fascinating, if only in their vanity.

The dudes were younger than myself with a mark propensity for head-banging. I'm not sure what the head-banging accomplished, other than delightfully tossing about their lusciously conditioned locks and making their head look like a pompoms.

The lead singer was a red-head who adored his body. In a ceremonial act, he peeled off his jacket and revealed a naked torso, before turning around and shaking his ass at the audience. The stage was electrically charged with adolescent male hormones, emitting statically from the tossing hair to the shrieking teenage girls around me.

I was not particularly moved to join the adoration, but I did raise an eyebrow. I felt as if I could read the red-head's mental mantra. It went something like this: "I'm so awesome. I'm so awesome. I play guitar and I sing and I'm so awesome. All these girls want me--look at my chest! It's showing--see? And I'm sweating. I'm so awesome."

As he prepared to dive into the sea of raised hands, I momentarily saw through his mask of testosterone and bravado and saw a scared little boy. I pitied him and hoped his mother would swaddle him after the show.

This is Ridiculous--Part III of the Couch Chronicles

Okay. The first time--whatever. The second time--fine. It could have been a mistake. But the third time somebody drops a random couch on our property...Now I know they're doing it on purpose.

Not just one couch, this time. Two.

It was October 31st, Halloween night, and my Father and brother had a feeling the pattern of Sunday-sofa-surprises might continue without exception on his hallowed night of romping hooligans.

And thus they found themselves freezing in the thick of our woodsy front yard, crouched in the dried leaves and shrinking as much as possible into the shadows of the trees beneath the bright silver moon. Determined to catch the sofa-stranders in the dirty act, my father and brother planted themselves in different positions in the yard and communicated via two-way radio, attempting to keep the beeping to a minimum.

Ansel--who would have been up this late anyway--was chagrined to be outside. The long interval of no-activity was broken by the frequent sound of owls hooting. "It was quite eerie," Pineiro said.

But waiting in the cold darkness between 11:30pm and 12:45am somehow inspired a kind of primitive hunter instinct. It was as if my brother had made contact with his ancient Neanderthal impulses, and allowed them to take over. He was determined to wait out the night until his prey scuttled up the driveway with a fresh sofa.

After waiting in the chilled night air for almost an hour and a half, my father realized his fingers were frozen to his radio; he decided he needed a mug of hot chocolate--pronto. He gruffly radioed over and out to my brother, and retreated to the warm house for some chocolatey rehabilitation. Ansel went too, but only to quickly turn off a light he left on in the basement.

It was only a matter of minutes in which both men were inside the house. My father told Ansel to keep an eye out--just in case. As he was opening the bag of mini marshmallows, my dad glanced out the window--and is if by wingardium-leviosa--a couch had landed in our driveway.

I'm guessing my father let out some kind of yell, and then it was a mad dash out the front door and into the street. "I'm so out of shape I almost died," Dad said.

In the blur of running, Ansel could see that another couch was placed on top of the garage roof. They couldn't be far. Ansel sprinted into the dark dirt road and witnessed two shady figures dart into a get-away car, and screech off down the road, southward.

The Neanderthal spirit pulsed through Ansel's veins, and growing a metaphoric coat of fur over his body, he thirsted for blood and bounded after the car on foot.

"I was debating about [trying to] jump on the back of the car and punch through the window," Ansel said (completely seriously), with the hint of a primitive grunt.

Unfortunately, neither my father nor my brother were able to catch the speeding vehicle on foot, and it was too dark to get the license plate number.

But what we did get was two more couches. One is resting in my sister's typical parking space, and the other is obnoxiously on top of the garage roof.

Again, I was thoroughly shocked to hear the news of another strike. I can't help but feel a little helpless living in Grand Rapids with out a car and not being able to hunt sofa-stranders with my kin, or insist to the police officers that it wasn't my fault. I have resorted to leaving a public note on my facebook status, so that hopefully the perpetrators will get the message:

"Dear People Who Have Been Putting Couches on our Roof, please stop. My family is getting really upset and you are giving my father migraines. Why would you want to pick on the Pineiros? What have we done to you? I don't leave my furniture ontop of your garages..."

A Reflection

Thank you for the spring and the flowers
and the shooting stars.
The sweet aroma of youth
and new beginning
and the excitement.

They moved so fast—the clouds, I mean
across the sky
tumbling in existential bliss
as I through the silks of color
faster an faster
until it was all around me
color
and your scent
and I found myself reflected in your eyes--
saw myself in you.

Thank you, too, for the autumn.
The colors, once again, in a different light.
The way they fall
and glide to the earth,
back to nature's arms.

Gravity makes me dizzy
the tumble through the air
to rest on the earth
solid.

Shavings of color brush around
and dance beautifully.
Again, I am colored
but differently.

I feel—I feel the touch
I remember the sun
And now I know the earth.

Thank you for the sun,
and thank you for the earth.

An Unfortunate Mastication

I was paying attention--I really was! But when Dr. Dawson was going on about Transcendentalism, something the professor's background caught my eye. A pencil on the floor.

I'm sure it had dropped from a table and bounced into the corner where it laid still, unbeknown to its careless owner. The lonely pencil jolted a memory of the day before, while I was giving a campus tour to a group of perspective students. Thirty feet from the Performing Arts Center, I came upon a similarly lonely pencil in the road. Being an eyesore, I picked it up and slipped it into my glove, despite the fact that I had no idea where the pencil had been, or what it could have touched. I am not a fool; I do know it is not typically a good idea to pick things up off the disgusting asphalt to collect as keep sakes, but I wasn't really thinking about that as I delivered my spiel about the theatre to my perspectives. This tiny detail of my tour clung to my memory by a vague shred. Hours later, I was surprised to find the pencil in my glove, and I automatically shoved it into my purse.

Huh. I wondered dreamily where that pencil was, as Dr. Dawson's voice danced about the classroom. I giggled quietly and then stopped short. I pulled the pencil out of my mouth--I had been chewing on its eraser. Seeing the scrape marks and bits of dirt gouged into it's plastic, I found myself spitting in the middle of my lecture course.

1854

Aha! What a curiously cozy little library I have stumbled upon! I quietly congratulate myself as I make my way to a lumpy bean bag and crack open a dazzling picture book. 3-D fishes pop out and swim around my spectacles. I chuckle and set the book aside, now committed to finding books to feed my scientific and literary appetite. As I tip toe to the scholarly periodicals, I take a moment to gaze at the lush courtyard through the crystal-clear bay window. It is exploding with vegetation and flowering in ostentatious glory--pinks, oranges, yellows, reds! How charming--I say, how very charming.

A wall of books stretches as far as mine eye can see, stacking 7 or 8 tiers high. Gleaming ladders slide to and fro and crawl up the wall with a low rumble, being pushed by an invisible force. For a moment I am hypnotized, but before I have time to ponder the queer source of the ladders' movement, I find myself twenty feet down the row, on the second tier, holding a promising book--on justice and peace.


Delighted, I glide to the circulation counter where I am greeted by an adorably decrepit spinster. She peers at me through tiny glasses, which she adjusts before checking out the book. It is due on the 4738190234856th.

"I say," says I, "Where might the exit be?" Glancing about, there are towering shelves on every wall with no break for a door.

The tiny woman twitters and says quite pointedly, "Dear, this is a library located in hell. You may not leave, but you may sit anywhere you like!"

All sense of worth drains from the book in my hands as I ponder the irony of the situation.

My Thoughts In Verse

Check-Out Check-Mate

The grocery store isle
and I'm trapped on the board,
I have to buy food
that I just can't afford.

I take out my card
and move like a pawn,
and after the swipe
it's 50 bucks gone.


Magneted to the Fridge with my Check

Here is my gas bill
and Here is my rent.
Though I don't want to,
it has to be sent.

You might hear me laugh
when there's nothing that's funny--
I open my purse
and lose all my money.


Dear Mr. Car

Please do not run me over
I really hope that you are sober
I'd like to live another day
or to the end of rent, next May.

Autumn Bliss

9:00am and a perfect morning for an autumn run. The air was soggy and saturated with the aroma of the tilted earth: a mixture of soil and cinnamon and the sweetness of apples in the distance. Apple cider. Apple pie. Caramel apple. All mixed into the breeze to be tasted by me, as I descend into the streets for my morning cardio.

The path before me was speckled with a canopy of greens and yellows. A shining puddle in every leaf beneath my shoes. I entered the world of fall splendor and sipped the air as I went.

To my delight, I realized that the trees were different down every road--like different parallel worlds on the grid of Grand Rapids. One lane of brightness brought the sight of spotted trees, sleek as if the bark had melted off. To my eyes, it looked as if the road was lined with giant lizards that had plunged themselves into the ground, with many tiny arms reaching up to embrace the sky and spilling pieces of the heavens' radiance to the ground. Peels of ruby and lime.

I bid the lizards farewell and entered the avenue of wood nymphs. They are beautiful, feminine creatures frozen eternally in place in various forms of arabesque and pirouette. Arms and legs extended and branching into a delicate tangle of ribbons in the sky, laced with lemon and mango feathers. The frozen ballet spread for a half mile and the silver blotted sky hummed a celestial melody of whimsical notes.

Another street was studded with Grecian statues. Holding themselves straight and erect, the trees proudly held up a grand hallow of fire, that rained quietly around me as I passed through their ancient shadows. A sight worthy of Demeter and celebrated by followers of Dionysus. The tattoo of my shoes against the pavement sang a dithyramb--a tribute to Classicism--and a fine accompaniment to the giggling saytrs, darting hither and thither in the grand spectacle of autumn.

The Curious Case of the Couch--Part II

I honestly thought that one couch, suddenly materializing upon our roof, was enough.

It seems that I was wrong. Last night, during one of the darkest hours, another couch was surreptitiously planted on our front porch. My father was actually still awake, completing some work on the computer down stairs--he heard commotion but took it to be the nightly sounds of my nocturnal brother preparing lunch. When my father decided to retire for the night, he crept upstairs to turn off the porch light--and lo and behold! A thoroughly uninvited, large piece of furniture glared at my father through the bay windows. He must have just missed the culprits scurrying into the darkness.

Really? I mean--for real. Another couch? Do people have nothing better to do with their time than to terrorize the poor Pineiro's, startling us with sofas? Thank God they didn't steal one of those scary Big Boy statues. I will publicly admit to everyone on the Internet that I would crap myself if I woke up to one of those ten-foot, bulged-eyed creepers offering me a pie.

Naturally, my father called the police--and like a broken record, the police officer asked my father if he had any daughters. For real? Do people only pull pranks on people's daughters?

Perhaps I need to apply critical theory to this situation in order to understand it better...

Marxist Theory: The reiteration of the couch--first on top of the roof, and then on the porch-- is an ironic status symbol. My father was a Cuban immigrant and entered this country with little money or possessions. After being a dedicated member of the working class for 45 years, my father is rewarded by the invisible (but over-powering) governmental force with the patronizing symbol of luxury--an old lumpy couch with moth-eaten upholstery.

Queer Theory: For the past eleven years we've lived in Allendale, Michigan, our next door neighbor J---- has had a flaming, unrequited passion for my father. Because of their stark differences in political dispositions and because of my father's obvious heterosexuality and fidelity to my mother, J---- knew no other way to demonstrate his obsessive amorous attraction for my father then to send him couches--the unconventional gift being a metaphor for his unconventional sexuality in conservative Allendale.

Psychoanalytic theory: The couches are not real. They are simply a manifestation of some kind of latent dysfunction in my father's mind-- so deeply repressed into his subconscious--but made so real through projection that all the members of our family can see the couches, as well. The couch, as a symbol itself, represents our deep need for family therapy--in which we will sit on couches similar to the ones that appeared on our roof--or above--as in our minds, and on our porch--next to the front door, in which it sought entrance to our attentions.

I feel better now that I have applied my college degree to the curious case of the couches. I am reminded of the importance of higher education and am delighted that my tuition dollars are being put to some good use.

Thoreau's Sublime Journey Into My Heart

"The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole."

I decided that I love Henry David Thoreau, and I wish I could go ice skating with him.

My initial impression of Thoreau was not very pleasant. I was fifteen and my father bought me "Walden Pond" for a Christmas present; he told me it was an important book and I should read it. Being an obedient daughter and excited to acquaint myself with a venerated text, I cracked it open. Ten minutes later, I was asleep. When I woke up, I decided that I didn't even know how to pronounce the word "transcendental" and that it was lame anyway.

From that point on, I resigned myself to nodding enthusiastically whenever somebody spoke of the "genius" of Thoreau, even though I had no real clue as to what he was about.

Five years later, I find myself in a class called "Transcendentalism." By this point, I can not only pronounce it, but I can spell it as well. An undeniable improvement. My professor tells the class that during Thoreau's famous and allegedly independent time spent on Walden Pond, he was visiting the Emersons' every day to take home treats prepared by Emerson's wife. He wasn't doing much of his own cooking. Furthermore, his spinster Auntie was making weekly visits to wash his clothes in the river--the same Auntie who (out of embarrassment)bailed Thoreau out of jail when he refused to pay his taxes. The experience of incarceration, Thoreau claims, made him see that, "if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar" (558 Thoreau,"The Transcendentalist." Ed. Joel Meyerson). Brave words for a man who spent a whopping one night in jail.

My initial disposition of Thoreau was disinterest, and my subsequent, partially educated opinion was cynical and scoffing. However, I am happy to publicly declare, after a half semester in the class, that my frigid disposition has melted into a kind of endeared warmth for the man.

After reading pages and pages of the dense philosophies of Emerson, Thoreau is like a breath of fresh air. Younger, more earnest, and (as I picture him) with eternally tostled hair and an untucked shirt. I honestly think he was oblivious to the way he used his Auntie and Mrs. Emerson; he was so (ironically) caught up in voicing the need for introspection and being acutely aware of one's conscience that he completely failed to read the demeaning signs of gender construction within his society. Thoreau was rather focused on the atrocity of slavery and what a citizen could do to radically withdraw their support. I applauded Thoreau's intrepidity in "Resistance to Civil Government" and "Slavery in Massachusetts."

Aside from his efforts for social reform, I was delighted by his child-like fascination with the world when he writes of nature, and the earnestness in which he talked about the "empire of fish" beneath this shoes, when ice skating over a frozen pond. He spent paragraphs discussing the watery kingdom and how even the fisherman thinks "fishy" thoughts, and how in a sense, he becomes a fish himself.

Transcendentalists were snickered at and called crack-pots because of their pure fascination with the world. Even the stiff-colored Emerson acted as a child in nature when he endorsed bending over and looking at the landscape upside-down, through the legs, just for a different perspective.

So in conclusion, I am glad that I didn't completely write Thoreau off when I deemed him boring and sexist. He is definitely more than he appears, initially. After reading so much Transcendental literature, I am able to see the color of Thoreau's personality and I have learned to recognize his sense of humor. And after reading "A Winter Walk" (1843) I think I might have found a poetic soul mate.

A Dismal Preoccupation

I have found that it is possible to be wrapped up in the ideological closure of academia in a thoroughly unproductive manner. "Break will be over before you know it!" is a saying that has worn itself into a miserable clique. This fall break, I wanted to best the clique. I slapped it with my glove challenged it to a duel. Unfortunately, I lost. I am K.O., out of the ring, upside-down in a dumpster three blocks away covered in rotting fruit and fermenting in the stench of my own failure. Instead of getting all my homework and studying done and having time to relax, I worried my time away and consequently didn't accomplish the super-human "To-Do" list that is presently shut away in the depths of my student planner, lest the glaring pages mock me into insanity.

I need a vacation. How many students say that on their last day of break? I need a long, tropical vacation where I won't have assignments or projects to think about--where I can crack open a coconut and spend three hours figuring out how to turn it into an awesome bra. I need to travel to Costa Rica and learn belly dancing from the native women.

But most of all, I need to float on a raft constructed from bamboo shoots and balsa wood in the middle of the ocean on a warm, breezy summer night, where I can lie on my back and connect the diamond constellations in the velvet sky, while the silver peal of the moon pours its shining liquid light upon my raft and stirs ghostly ripples in the water around me. Then, like the monks in the Middle Ages, I can contemplate the harmony of the celestial orbs and the way I spontaneously add to the music...Me--a mere human, ontologically wounded and flawed by nature, who is more insignificant to the material world than the poems of Emerson. In nature, maybe I can be on par with genius...
What good are dreams and ambitions if the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak?

The Endless Contemplation of Death

Every now and then I am shaken from the illusion that life is perpetual, and am reminded that someday, I will die. Death is a difficult concept to grasp as nobody alive has experienced it; it can only be speculated at with an air of abstraction. But the fact remains that each and every one of us will eventually come to a point where we will experience it--and we will experience it alone.

Today I visited a funeral home, a mortuary. It was the brother of my sister's friend who passed away at the age of 31, leaving behind his wife and two young daughters. Nobody would have predicted that the seemingly healthy man would have a heart attack and pass away within minutes. The visitation was spinning with friends and family--some who were chatting and laughing at memories, others who were crippled with grief. I would imagine each took their turn at these extremes and in between.

The silent body in the adorned corner, of course, was the source of the poignant gathering. Being in the presence of such a man, without ever meeting him in life, was moving in a way I can not explain. I thanked God for the man's life and mourned for the little girls who won't remember their father. Tucked up next to the body inside of the casket was a piece of paper with blue crayon writing. "I love you Daddy!"

I am sorry for the family.

Tonight I am honoring the mortality of man, and appreciating the life that I have. There is no guarantee that any of us will live long lives. When it is time for me to take the hand of God and leave my family behind, I hope that I will be satisfied with the life that I had the chance to live.

The Playground of Anarchy

I have always thought about the anarchy of the world in terms of children on a playground. There is no adult supervision. The kids are free to play as nicely or as meanly as suits their whims--it is a delicate balance between playing nicely and outright chaos.

The U.S., as the hegemony, has the status of "cool guy jock." He glides about the playground, avoiding certain shady looking corners, and uses his status to alter the behavior of the other children. "Israel was here first--you need to go over there, Palestine" and such of the sort. A lot of the kids are on U.S.'s side, even though they gossip, but there are many kids who hate U.S.

France is the sissy in nice clothing who sits at the top of the slide, and refuses to go down on the account that his shoes will get dirty.

North Korea is the skinny boy on ritalin who runs around and jabs unsuspecting kids with a stick.

The clique of Europeans are arm in arm, with England as the alpha female.

Russia, of course, is the big kid sitting by himself on the swing set, muttering to himself.

China is the bully who socks people when nobody's looking, and then blames it on somebody else as he trades his cheap toys for the U.S.'s allowance.

It wouldn't take much...perhaps Pakistan throws a punch. Maybe its Iran and Israel--and then it's chaos. Dirt and wood chips go flying. There's yelling and pulling hair, and as soon as somebody pushes France off the slide,everyone must take sides. If, for instance, Brazil tries to remain neutral, he won't last long. The children realize that, in order to avoid swirlies and sever wedgies, they must have an alliance of friends to help protect themselves.

The problem is, one of the kids found a bomb, and he realized he can blow up his neighbor with it. There are many bombs laying around, and all one has to do is pick it up. And throw it.

How long will they last?

The True Account of an Incident, happending on the 18th of October, 2009

12:00 noon. The police officer cannot conceal his giant smile as he scratches the incident onto his yellow notepad. "Couch discovered on roof." My father stands by, fuming over the audacity for someone to sneak in the dead of night and place a large piece of furniture on our roof. He mutters threats of lawsuit as he considers the sagging cushions of soggy blue, spilling awkwardly onto the roof from the couch's upside-down position.

Two and a half hours earlier, my father arises to drive Weston (my 9 year old brother) to Church School, at which point the couch was already in position. Somehow, it escapes my father's notice as he backs out of the driveway, and continues on his way. The sharp 4th grader, however, does notice the odd piece of furniture upon the roof. He doesn't say anything to my father, because, (as he claims after questioning later in the day) he "thought it was supposed to be there."

At approximately 9:45am, my father returns to our home after making a quick stop at Family Fare to purchase a Sunday bouquet for my Mother. While he is pulling into the driveway, he suddenly noticed the startling sofa above the garage, and stops with a screeching of the car. He promptly jogs into the house to alert my mother.

My Mother awoke at 9:46am to her husband holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and a most curious expression on his face. In over 25 years of marriage, she could not remember an expression of equal confusion.
"Here's some flowers. There's a couch on the roof."
"Oh, flowers!"
"I said there's a couch on the roof."
"You didn't have to get me these!"
"Did you hear me?"
"What are you talking about?"
Becoming increasingly agitated, my father says, "LOOK OUTSIDE! There's a COUCH on the ROOF!"

9:48, my sister wakes up after a long night working third shift at Jimmy Johns. The noise down stairs irritates her and she rolls over again, with her pillow over her head. To her great dismay, our mother bursts through the doors and says "Erika, there's a couch on the roof!" To which Erika replies, groggily, "Is someone sitting on it?"

It is a confusing morning.

The Pineiros dress, and attend mass with cartoon question marks floating above their heads. Weston rejoins the family, and when questioned in a whisper by his mother, "Weston, did you happen to notice a couch on our roof?", he replied, "Oh, you mean the one on the garage?" She is still dumbfounded by his casual reply.

The mystery of the Couch-Strander could not be solved by the police officer, who scratched down the note more out of amusement than duty. He shifted his weight and whimsically asked my irate father, "Do you happen to have a daughter?" My sister was outraged that he would suggest she was anyway at fault, because in her opinion, she is blamed for everything--even, apparently, large pieces of furniture that materialize on top of houses.

As for me, my true talent of observation showed when I returned from college later that day. I drove straight up the driveway, jolted into the house, bee-lined it to the fridge and made myself a sandwich. Later, I pretended that I noticed the couch on the roof, although in truth I probably wouldn't have noticed if the pavement was lined with gum-drop bricks or the house was painted purple. Nevertheless, I am left to impotently ponder the identity of the Couch-Strander with the rest of the family.

Maybe it spontaneously generated from the junk in our garage--the physical manifestation of our need to organize and donate stuff. Perhaps I have a secret admirer who thought the way to my heart was through a sofa. Or--what if, in some kind of modern Easter Island thing, the aliens are trying to communicate with my family? Or--even more delightfully, what if there are a bunch of stoned weirdos nearby with a truck and too much time on their hands?

Which ever the case may be, it is clear that the incident has brought the family together--at least as far as strange conversation goes--which is just as good as any.

A curiously mundane and slightly disappointing endeavor

It was a sad attempt at festive decoration. The pale green gourds, tiny and awkwardly shapen, appeared to be misplaced. Perhaps they were healthy gourds in their natural habitat of crispy leaves, disintegrating haystacks and the redolence of apple cider, but pressed up against a sliding glass window in the Campus Safety Office, the perturbingly phallic-shaped fruit withered into itself, anemically, and its presence struck me as unnecessary. I pondered for a moment about the tradition of decorating one's home or one's office place with such odd-looking Cucurbitaceae that are commonly mistaken for vegetables. I felt sorry for the poor things. I have been in environments that felt alien to me--I have felt like those little pathetic gourds, quivering wordlessly, awkward, in the corner.

--Just as I was sympathizing with the fall decorations, the window slid open.
"Sorry that took so long," nodding sideways, to the two-way radio. I blinked and, remembering where I was, proceeded to tell the absurdly thin blond chick about my missing bag.
"It's just--uh, a regular--plastic grocery bag, but it has my karate pants in it. And, uh, my black gloves and a sandwich with only one bite taken out--it was gross so I didn't eat it--I bought a bagel instead, at the Moose, you know--which is where--or when, I mean, I lost my bag. NoImean I realized it was gone when I got my bagel which came with cream cheese that I also didn't eat." At that point I vowed never to drink full strength coffee after serious sleep deprivation; when I do, I come across as an illiterate escapee from an institution who wandered onto campus and managed to chew off her straight jacket.

She blinked. "I'll take a look."

She began delicately fingering through various bits of lost key chains and cell phones that had accumulated in a narrow drawer, three times too small to fit the kind of bag I clearly described. I felt my left eyebrow raise involuntarily. Annoyed, I told her not to worry about it. I blinked sleepiness out of my eyes--a final wink to my squash friends--and exited out the door.

Three people.

I can name three people, in particular, who make me a better person. Allyse, one of my roommates pushes me to be more responsible. I really don't know how to put it, other than if it weren't for Allyse, I would be a lot more messy and careless about my behavior--where I put my shoes when I come home, when I wash my dishes, when I pay my bills... Sometimes I get frustrated because I really don't feel like it's my fault when I don't have time to do something, but Allyse is there to remind me that I could organize my time better, and that I can make time. I think I am finally learning some lessons I should have been open to a long time ago. I am trying really hard to be a better house mate and a more responsible adult--it's just that sometimes I don't even have a clue...Allyse shows me that I can always be better and I really, really appreciate that.

My acting colleague, Lizzy, also makes me a better person. I can't even say how many times she's picked me up when I was sinking into despair. She has boosted my self-esteem when I felt so bad about myself that I wanted to jump off the side of a cliff. The funny thing about Lizzy is, she is the most talented actor I know, and she tells me that she's honored to work with me. Just last night, I was having a minor panic attack about a directing project due the next morning. I left a desperate message on her phone, not expecting her to angelically appear behind me 4 minutes later, saying "don't panic." She puts things into perspective for me and has talked me through a number of things I am eternally grateful for. Lizzy is helping me to face my future career with courage.

The third person I want to appreciate today, on this tiny sphere of the internet, will remain anonymous. He told me once to picture somebody that I really respected and admired. Once I had the person in mind, he told me that I could be better than that person. Something to strive for. I didn't think I could ever do that--I'd never even thought about it, but he told me to do it.
So here I am. I am dreaming about the possibilities in my life. I have no idea what I am going to do this summer, but it might be something incredible. It will be my last summer before I graduate...and from there? Who knows. But I'm going to find out.

We are Golden

How fast can light travel? How easily can light warm the earth as it spills from the horizon to illuminate the land--to set ablaze the drops of dew that cling to each blade of grass, freshly melted from the crisp of frost. Light can free all things--it can expose, illuminate, it can separate into many different colors through a prism of glass or drops of rain.

I want to fly with the light and be collected by daisies and orchids--to enrich the greenery that carpets the lush earth when the stars vanish behind the silky veil of blue. Maybe someday I can join the sun in its blaze in the heavens and help to set the clouds aflame--the soft waves of fire, suspended above the earth in perpetual, breathing motion, billowing and dissipating on the whim of the thermal.

Light breaths heat into our midst like swirling ribbons of gold, that cling to our bodies and melt like butter. Comfort. The fire place. A cup of tea. An embrace.
Maybe someday I can help to embrace. To comfort. To tread upon the land that is cold and warm it with my steps and comfort the crying child. The wounded soldier.

Light can heal--dry tears--warm--expose--renew--love--embrace--minister--love--feed--cover--love--dazzle--spread--light travels quickly. The fastest motion.

Procrastination Is Like Masterbation...you're only screwing yourself.

This shall be my checklist to help me delineate my habitual crimes of procrastination, in the midst of the act. It shall be in the form of active questions and answers.

1. Am I asking "Am I procrastination?"
(Yes. I'm procrastinating.)

2. Have I consumed a disgusting amount of chocolate and I-don't-even-know-what, as a means of "helping" me think?
(Yes. Then I procrastinated 15 minutes ago.)

3. Am I doing my daily blog past the hour of midnight--so as to not even count as part of the day?
(Yes..but it's only 41 minutes after midnight...)

4. Have I suddenly become acutely aware of all the noise in my house and have embarked on an epic (and failing) journey to silence all noises?
(Well...I didn't silence Alyse because that would have entailed killing her.)

5. Has the crack in the wall suddenly struck strangeness and meaning in my mind so as to reconcile my staring at it for several minutes on end without so much as blinking?
(I refuse to answer that question.)

With the results I have quickly gathered from myself, I suppose it is safe to say that I fall prey to procrastination, at times. For the sake of education, I find it worthy to record an account of the biological sensations attached to procrastination, and perhaps it will help to further diagnose my condition.

I maintain an outward objective to write the paper. Underneath, however, are uninvited thoughts. "Ice Cream." "YouTube." "Anything on this bloody earth besides this paper." I experience an inner conflict-a tug, to and fro, that I fear will drag me out into the wasteland of disinterest or academic self-consciousness. At that moment, I give in and seek another occupation for ten minutes, rather than confront the bubbling panic in my mind and turn off the burner of hysteria. Then my laundry becomes important. Then some kind of emotional drama dances through my consciousness. Two hours later, I am startled back into reality, and am disgusted that I've taken so long to write my thesis sentence. My initial reaction is to cry loudly and hit somebody, but there is no one in sight. (And furthermore, I have become rather more cultivated than that in my 20 years of life.) I suffice, instead, by blogging my problems away...and here I am.

Thank you for listening, I'm going to bed now.