Happy New Year

Seven days late of letting you know, but its never too late. Hello to the baby new year.

I feel old. I can vividly remember 2000's new year like it was yesterday, yet here I am on the threshold of 2009 amply surprised on how these past nine years just whisked by me.

I'm still petite. I don't think I've grown much since 2000. Just barely enough to skate the little people height requirement. I believe I clear the height limit by 3 inches.

I'm not so innocent anymore, thanks to age and time. I'm not as boy crazy. I grew a little bit of a womanly figure. But other than that I still like look like my old self.

Back then, I was an avid journal person. I filled journals in a few weeks. I wrote everything from Braves scores, to Javy Lopez' batting average, to what I ate that night. Today, I still journal by hand (more so than blogging). Journaling to me is therapeutic and yes, it contains my deepest, my darkest concerns, my hopes and my dreams. I can get pretty candid when blogging but I'm pretty much all out when I'm journaling. But unlike the distant days of filling pages, I seem to be too exhausted to journal at night sometimes writing and updating weeks in between instead of days and at one time, I had a dry spell for 5 weeks.

I need to write more. I was looking back on my work the last 2 years and I've been able to produce some outstanding work. But the stuff I've written lately are just that: stuff. It's not literature. It's just stuff with some fluff.

In my ideal world, I'd have a get-away vacation home somewhere in the snowy Rockies. Or the Alps. A cozy cabin where I have a maid serving me endless cups of espresso and cookies and a typewriter.

Sounds corny and cliche but I think that just might get some of my creative juices flowing. Until then, I guess I'll try to squeeze out the future Pulitzer wanna-be's in whatever way I can, even in grammar error laden blogs like this.

Anyway, I'll try random things... like the following exercise:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

* No tagging here of course... it's a blog!

1. I have a bucket list. Not necessarily of things I want to do before I die, but just things in general I want to do. Some of them are atrociously ambitious (Goodwill Ambassador anyone?), adventurous (sky dive, base dive, bungee jump...), romantic (wake up and watch the sun rise)... But one in particular that I can put a HALF check next to was to write the President a letter, which I have. I wrote it after 9/11 in high school to President Bush simply because I wanted to thank him for leading the country. I didn't get a reply back. I'm still waiting President Bush you have 13 days left in office!

Maybe President Obama will answer my letter.

2. Some of the saddest days of my life has come around the holidays, one in particular in my childhood. But I still love Christmas very much.

3. Speaking of Christmas, I love the season this much: I listen to Christmas music year round and start preparing for the season in the BER months.

4. I don't make and or eat PBJ sandwiches unless Katey makes them. They only taste good when she makes them.

5. I was once in a pageant. 6th grade to be exact. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life and the only time I have ever put hairspray on my hair.

The Grown Pains

Good God. It's the end of the semester. And I feel exhausted and I'm ready to break down.

And I see that God's plans for metamorphosis doesn't quite level out this year just yet and the changes are coming faster and more complex and a little bit more surprising.

This must be the frontiers of adulthood and I'm not sure I like it. It's so much easier to deal with growing pains and petty insecurities that do nothing but complicate how you'll be remembered in yearbook photos. Than deal with the complications and uncertainties of being an adult.

I realized I'd much rather sit in a high school cafeteria, a stranger with no one to lunch with on the first days of school and cry in the girls bathroom because that pain is so  much easier to bear than the realities of adulthood.

It's a strange and scary feeling knowing you are practically on your own in a world that has yet to determine what spot you would have. Your roles aren't as defined in adulthood. There are no syllabus and deadlines and club requirements to guide you. There's no road map and forced ideals to shape you. 

There's nothing but a huge open field and it scares me that I'm so close to venturing out with no particular place to go.

Sometimes, I feel like there should be placement programs. Or at least leave me a training wheel. Or a Jeeves to ask questions when everything dead-ends.

As a child, you're successful in school if you make A's. You're a good kid if you hardly give your parent's trouble. Those are the keys to success.

And now, what's to determine that? Does making more money determine success? Does being broke but happy determine success?

I feel like adults sugar coated everything and talked about how to be child, a good one. It's funny how now I've noticed no one really ever reminisce about adulthood or talk about being one. 

You can turn off the sun, but I'm still gonna shine.

School starts on Wednesday.

And I am looking back on where I was this time last year.

I was so different. I've gone through a hell of a transformation this past year that I can't recognize the girl I was. Are they even the same people?

And then I realized I'm not quite done with the transformation. I have a long way to go and big changes are still in store for this year.

My new year never starts in January. My mind and body recognizes a new phase for me every August, around the time that school starts.

In the past, all the new school gizmos did it and the rearranging of room for a better fengshui. There was always a new promise of better things to come in August. Better teachers, better classes, better mindset and motivation, and the hope that just maybe, just maybe he'll notice me this year.

I think it's because I get so excited. I don't enjoy the summers much because it is so hot and miserable but the Fall makes me come alive. While everything else dies in preparation of the cold winter ahead, I blossom and dance to the crisp autumn air and the changing colors under the cool sun.

It's different this year.

For one, I feel like I've been torn apart and glued in so many ways. I feel strangely different. I feel confident.

It's a strange feeling, but it is empowering. And a little scary. I don't know what to do with it yet. But all I know is that it takes a lot more to knock me down. I'm a lot stronger that I gave myself credit for.

I am electing not to have resolutions this year mostly because I don't want to give myself room to break them.

Why the promise to get-in shape every other day when I know there will come a day when I do not feel like doing so.

I know what I should do. There are no need for plans.

And I know what I should be. And what I ought to be.

There's no more excuse for me to get less than what I deserve. With that said, these are my intensions:

I am not your doormat. I was perhaps born with too much compassion and feeling, but this does not give you the right to walk all over me.

You will not volunteer me. And I will learn to say no. You will ask me before you commit me to something.

That being said, I don't have to. I will not feel obligated to do anything when I've been constantly used to not getting anything in return. I will not be guilt-tripped to do anything short of breaking my back for you. I have trained for you to expect this from me, but that is no longer the case.

I have taken too many high roads in the past, letting go and forgiving, when I should be treating you as you are treating me.

And I will not let you steal my limelight, when I step back and admire you when it's your turn. I will not tolerate your pouting or refusing to recognize my good fortune when I take time to share your good fortune with you. I don't expect the same class from you, but you should have some respect for me.

And when it's my turn, I will do what I want. I may not know what that will be until it gets here but you will not tell me what to and how to do it. I'm not indecisive. I like my options.

I'm not Burger King. You can't "have it your way".

It was my first time... and it did hurt a little... ok a lot

It happened the beginning of June sometime, and it's July now, so I'm running behind but I want to share it with everyone.

No, it's not THAT kind of thing.

Derek was determined to take me floating down the river, it was something we never planned for, but since I don't' enjoy the water much, he decided through one of his "hair-brain ideas" as he so put, that he would give me a different kind of experience.

He claims the monotony of the pool may just be the culprit of my water-rut, not to mention my slight dislike for it. I'm not much of a swimmer, and the water has always scared me... I mean, remember Jaws ? Or how about that sci-fi classic The Blob, or Lady in the Water, or better yet the girl from the well in The Ring? I could go on and on...

But I digress.

He decided to buy us two cheap float rings from Walmart, and then off we went floating downstream, specifically down the river Oconee near my school. Which is a feat for me because for one, I don't like the river much. I like looking at it, or driving through it, but I don't like being in it. I'm not a swimmer. And secondly, this was an outdoorsy thing to do. I don't do the latter very well, if not at all. But Derek grew up around these type of activities so there was nothing to do but plunge.

I wish I could tell you that I relaxed some, but every time I finally would allow myself to something suspicious splashed in the river or my foot would graze something gross and slimy and a fish or some river creature would brush past me.

The worst part is sometimes it's hard to tell what things are because at any given moment I had mistaken twigs and tree trunks for alligator noses or river snakes (moccasins).

The river is shallow for the most part. There were times when I would be surprised and jump that something is under my butt only to realize a second later that my butt is scraping stones and sand from the shallowness.

The constant worry of being carried away by the current, a possible attack by alligators, and being bitten by poisonous snakes made me very anxious but I put my big-girl panties on and carried on.

After all, if Derek put forth enough thought to give me a new experience, surely it can't be THAT bad. And if not now, then when?

Carpe Diem, right? Seize the day.

We by-passed a few exit landings deciding to go farther since we had the time. That was until we realized we're not seeing anymore boat landings, there were less floaters and kayakers, no electric lines to speak-off, and we were pretty much alone in the company of a wilderness that was beginning to look more like the Amazon forest than Middle Georgia.

Holy Cow.

Along the way we saw several sand bars and stopped at one leading to a hill. Derek thought he might see something familiar on the other side, so on we went climbing this hill barefooted to the top only to find a huge field with weird looking larger bush among it and cow piles everywhere. We were barefooted and we were jumping and hopping to avoid cow piles.

But these cow piles had missing owners because we didn't see or hear any cows.

This field then reminded us of the fields from Jurassic Park. And it was creepy.

We didn't stay long there as we didn't find anyone. Though we did hear a radio somewhere but couldn't really locate it.

The only good thing that may have come out of this is that we were hungry (and didn't bring food) and Derek introduced me to my first wild blackberries, fresh from the bushes. He even gathered some for us to eat making us feel like regular scavengers trying to survive in the wild.

And I'm glad to report that they were not poisonous and had no diarrhea side-effects afterward. Seriously. For the longest time, I refused to eat wild berries because I had a notion that they would tear your stomach apart.

Sandbars. And mind games.

There were lots of sandbars that we opted to walk-on instead of float-by because by this time (which was late afternoon) we both decided that we've had enough floating and it was time to get off the river. Walking on the sandbars made it faster for us to travel and there were several along the way.

Derek delighted in pointing out animal tracks along the way showing me what deer tracks looked like, picking up baby turtles, teeny slimy frogs and especially pointed out tracks left by the alligators and their potential home a few feet away under huge tree stumps and sludgy looking lagoons.

And they were huge. The tracks, I mean.

But no problem, Derek said. Alligators only like to go hunting at night.

And with the sun going down faster than we can get out the river, it looked like the alligators may have company.

We met a few kayakers along the way giving us direction and telling us that (Hallelujah!) the next landing is not that far, only three more bends, a bit of a longer stretch, and that the landing is still in the same county!

What these boat people never told us was precisely how long these bends were, because as we rounded them, they definitely bended for what seemed like miles, and we were paddling for what seemed like hours.

But we got there.

And we had no plan. You see, this little unplanned adventure was never meant to go as long as we had anticipated and at most we thought we may have a couple mile walk ahead of us back to the car which was in the landing where we started the float.

Since, neither of us had a cellphone, or cash in hand, we went the biblical way and walked to our destination.

Except in the biblical times they probably had ample clothing.

We had our flip-flops, our bathing suits (swim trunks for him, and two piece bikini for me), and two large floaties.

We walked in the middle of the forest where this landing is located, through a stretch of tedious gravel road, up the hill to a quiet neighborhood, and on to a highway, walking briskly trying not to get angry that I am almost naked, carrying a dumb floaty, getting honked at and stared at from the road. And not to mention becoming dinner to several insects that gnawed my skin raw and that I rubbed furiously.

Not to mention, it was a race against daylight and neither of us had a clue of how far it was until the car.

Eventually, we recognized where we were walking to as I walked by two state prisons (and having jail birds hoot and holler at me in my bikini and our now deflated floaters that I had to makeshift into a drape), past Central state hospital, next to a Veteran's assisted home facility and through the ghetto, where we were the only two non-black kids walking through.

All I could think of was how someone was going to surely do something as this was the bad part of town and before long, the night owls and all the trouble they bring would come out.

Drug dealers, prostitutes, gangsters, and people that were up to no good would soon come out, and we would be there to greet them... or get in their way.

But we obviously made it, thanks to Derek's friendliness and making the black people laugh and we made it to the car. After hours of walking and hours floating and paddling down the river finally caught up with us and gave us both bodily pains like no one can imagine and head-splitting migraines.

Oddly enough, I had a pretty good time, in general. Even though I was a bit upset and scared, and achy, Derek and I managed to entertain ourselves teasing each other and laughing the whole way even if it was in the expense of how much I'd like to hurt him afterwards.

We laughed so hard and agreed that someday we'd tell this story to the next generation...

I guess we live to tell another story.

There are strange people in this world...

A few days ago my great friend Erin and I explored Madison, GA mostly because Erin was researching for an article about a certain Confederate Sgt. that was brutally assassinated. How do I know such things? Well, it's because on another excursion Erin took me to, she found a grave plot along US 441 stating along the lines of... "he was brutally assassinated in Morgan County".
Erin is bonkers for these type of stuff, so naturally she went on a research haywire conjuring up plans of tracking down descendants, finding treasure, scandals, mystery... that sort of thing.
I didn't mind tagging along because it reminded me of the days when I wanted to be Nancy Drew. Turns out, my inner Nancy Drew found a partner with Erin's icon, Harriet the spy.
So here we are ready to embark on finding something cool going around historic Madison stopping first by the archivist's office, only to find they didn't come to work that day, and finding the same for the town historian. They must have gone on a date.
Well, we weren't going to let a perfect day go to waste and we instead discovered many of Madison's charming little antebellum houses, quaint streets and an equally quaint shopping district downtown.
We went to a lot of stores until we discovered a new favorite, The Laughing Moon, owned by these two little (and cute) old ladies, and a store full of neat and fabulous and random things. We shopped and most proud of finding Erin two absolutely gorgeous and floral tops.
If you knew Erin, she almost never wears florals. And I'm now happy to announce that Erin is in fact a good looking girly-girl. Not to say she doesn't look great as a non-girly girl, but boys when you see my friend in all the florals and feminine silhouette... well, let's just say she's a knocj out.

But the main story today is not really about Erin's shopping finds (sorry.)

What does an Old creeper, a bum, Selena and Britney Spears have to do with each other?

We stopped by the Chophouse for a quick bite and ate on the patio to enjoy the sunshine. It was pretty quiet as we had lunch in the late afternoon.
A few tables behind us sat an older man wearing a loose cut-off t-shirt, a hat, and a pair of cut-off jean shirts and sunglasses. His beer belly was poking out a bit from under his shirt and he was sipping a beer.

We were just minding our business and chatting away when out of nowhere the man says:

"Hey ladies, I'm gonna have to not let you buy me a drink... haha."

Erin and I just looked at him, giggled politely.

"No really, you can't buy my beverage."

Like we were really thinking about it...

After telling him, no-no we won't buy a drink at all and just when we were to resume our own little conversation, he proceeds to take of his hat, revealing a balded head and smiles at us maniacally and says something like:

"I got a haircut and I told them to cut my hair like Jack Nicholson's... do I look like Jack Nicholson?"

(Our happy hour man look-alike)

Actually, he did look like Jack Nicholson... creepily so. And he creeped us out just like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" would.
Erin concluded that it's probably how he picks women up, or at least flirt with them all the time.

Then a homeless black man was walking down the street and waved at me... I waved back.
Mostly because I wasn't really thinking about it. It was a reflex thing. My hand just went up.
He then walked towards our table and sat down. I guess he took it as an invitation instead of a friendly gesture. But I'm pretty sure my hand motion went in the way as "wax-on and wax-off" would and nothing like a come hither and dine with me type of motion.
And he wanted to bum a couple dollars off me.



And he thought Erin looked like Britney Spears. And I looked like the Mexican crooner, Selena. Yes, the one that Jennifer Lopez Played way back when she was still a starlet...
"Mike" who's last name will be withheld kept telling us interchangeably that we were gorgeous.

I couldn't really understand what he was saying... But here were some memorable ones that I understood and some that Erin translated for me:

(To me) Oooooh-weee, that mole. oooh wee. I straighten up for you...
(To Erin) You married? You date a black man before? Cause you gorgeous.

The restaurant crew was pretty worried about us and kept checking on us regularly asking if Mike was bothering us.

First the waitress came, and then suddenly, I turned around and there was a pretty mean looking man, apron and all, standing behind me and staring Mike down.

Then came the manager who asked (by sugar coating the word begging) if he was soliciting.

We both knew that the man was harmless. He even showed us his I.D. saying over and over again that it's hard because in his words he was a made the manager come out and ask him to leave. That it was hard for him to live a daily life because of his status.

I understand where his coming from. It would be hard to trust a homeless man with an opportunity to do something, much less a decent living. But I'm not quite that sympathetic to his plight when he approached us with bloodshot eyes and the smell of liquor on him.

He said he did some landscaping work sometimes. He was able-bodied enough to walk around, and he had all his limbs intact.

I do not mean to be crass, but I feel like he's putting himself in that position and color is not so much a deciding factor to his fate.

The n-word as my boyfriend puts it, is a derogatory word. It defines a low, good-for-nothing bum, who is not interesting in succeeding in life or making opportunities happen. The n-word applies to both black and white people and all other colors in between. A black person is someone just like the rest of us who is educated and dedicated. Someone who strives for a better life.

I'm sad to say that although I feel sad for his situation, I do not sympathize with him. Mainly because I feel like he has put himself in that situation. Food is priority. Never the thirst.

Erin made a deal with him that if she bought him a burger and a drink, that he would eat it elsewhere.

And then Erin, being Erin, decided to kid around one more time and tease the man about us bringing him out in town. He was ever excited and wanted to know how long we were in town because he has a couple of friends.

For safety purposes, Erin and I in fact told him a white lie. We were just passer-by's going through Madison, nowhere near town so he won't be tempted to find us.

So, on went Mike and his burger...

"We friends, aight?"

Yes Mike. We Friends.


A'floatin down the river

After a strange day of attempted discovery, exploration and strange people, Erin and I decided we would chillax by lazily floating down the Ocmulgee River. Which towards the end we decide we'd just actually anchor our butts, floaties and all, and enjoy my one beer (to Erin's several) and watch the sunset.

It was my second time floating the river... the first an experience courtesy of my beau. And I was not yet comfortable doing so. We didn't nearly go as far as I had reached my first go round but it was late. The water was inviting, the scenery serene... It was the perfect summer day.

G and the land of cynical

Ever wake up one day and you discover that everything is a mess? Makes you wanna jump right back in bed right?
I try not to stay in bed those days. Mostly I try to think positive. But sometimes there are just some people, ahem some friends, that are so... incredibly negative. Or too realistic.

So today I'm going to share my experiences of anti-optimism from girl G to yours truly.

After being on a string of fruitless first dates (and by a string, it spans a year and a half), disappointments, and pondering over relationships that never could have worked and didn't give a chance to work, I finally committed to one.
I have a slight history of never going past the first date because I either feel like I'm in no mood to be impressed or I'm just not impressed at all.
And then one day out the blue just when I seriously was swearing off all men, I found Derek.
And as newly coupled girls should react, I was floating on cloud nine and all sense of how should one girl be so lucky to find a flawless, most thoughtful, most caring, most endearing boy I've ever met.
I was giggly and eternally smiling whenever he called or texted and pretty much whenever the thought of him breezed through my head which is very often.
We found each other talking for hours on the phone, laughing and saying silly things that were only ever so romantic in movies but I found too cheesy for real life.
But I relished in it. The "you hang-up, no YOU hang-up" conversations never got old.

I have three roommates. Two of which were very happy for me and teased me for the blushing, the giggles, and walking around like I had a balloon tied to my head for being even more bubbly than usual.
G however, told me one day that this honeymoon period only lasts so long and that I shouldn't be so clouded in to seeing that my flawless man would soon reveal his true spots, all his annoying habits and all his faults.
"It's not going to be a cloud nine for much longer," G told me in her matter-of-fact way.

When she told me this my boyfriend and I have been together a little over a month.

Maybe it doesn't really sound as harsh as I make her to be but it's not in her choice of words or even in the subtlety that she says it. It's in the tone of her voice, the soft hiss that pours out of her mouth and the pull it does on me.

I know of the flaws. His flaws and mine. It's just that I don't see them as flaws. I see them as a character.

And I know it's going to come. You know, the day I find that maybe his eating habits will annoy me, or the way he clings to me at night, or the way he's brutally honest sometimes.

But not just yet.

I know we'll have a fight and I'll probably want to break up with him. He'll probably make me I cry, and I'll probably hurt his feelings.

But not just yet.

I know this and much more are coming and I'll tackle those when the time gets here, if we're both lucky enough to sort out that kind of mess ourselves.

But what I don't get is why G would tell me something like that, why she was always the one who pulled me from the clouds, setting all my high hopes and nearly pulverizing them to something that I can't even recognize at the end.

She did the same for me for many other situations. She asked me once why I kept going on dates when I knew well that it may not work.
"He's out there somewhere," I said hopefully. "Ready to sweep me off my feet and carry me away."
"You are too romantic," G retorted. "Men like that really don't exist. You can't expect a knight in shining armor. That makes you too selective your realities are impaired. You're setting all these standards no guy can achieve. You are being way too picky."

My other roommate once told her to leave me alone and let me live out my fairytale story a little longer. She took me aside and said that my fairytale man is out there somewhere and I should keep on being picky, and being hopeful.

And while I almost always take life with a grain of salt, even fairytale aside, G never missed a beat in sharing her chunks, or blocks of salt down my way.

For G, it was almost always the worst case scenario in the midst of my hope for the best attitude and often times I am left with too much thinking time and beating myself up for "setting myself up for disappointment."

And I couldn't understand. How is it that my other roommate who just endured a most devastating break-up can have the face to tell me that my Mr. Right, the one perfect one, is out there waiting for me, while G who is in a steady relationship, whose life seem to go every which way she chooses it to be, could so easily put my life in perspective?

I remember this only because this was the beginning of my short stint in G's land of cynicism when I decided that I was better off focusing on the road to being the Alpha female, and that college men were immature disappointment, which eventually snowballed to all men being some form of immature disappointments all together.

And at the height of my time in cynical land, Derek found me and rescued me (as cheesy as that may sound).

It's been almost six months. And I'm still on cloud nine. And the honeymoon period?

We're just getting started.

Hoping for a slow day

I've been waiting for the thunderstorm to roll around all day long. It's like we're having a stand-off. I sit here waiting for an epic summer storm, and the "epic" storm spends the entire day mocking me instead by playing hot and cold. One minute you see rolls of black clouds hover above, then you hear the loud claps and thumps of thunder, then nothing.

No moisture. No sprinkles. No wind.

Just that faint smell of nature that lets you know rain is coming, and the ominous clouds permanently situated above my apartment all day long.

It finally poured at 8 o'clock this evening, ruining my plan of taking a glorious nap snuggled under a cozy bundle during an afternoon storm.

I've spent my entire day instead trying to write more feature articles to be considered for publication hoping it gets my foot somewhere, albeit it would be one toe at a time.
While I enjoy pursuing such things I wish I had a sufficient supply of something green necessary to gallivant around town so I can afford to waste gas while I look for an inspirational and breakthrough story.

Or an inspiration.

My mind is just so cluttered lately. There's so many things I'm thinking about and worrying about that sometimes I drift off to sleep thinking just that and waking up from where I left my thoughts.

I'm so distracted, so unprepared, and so on-the edge about the future. What will I be doing a year from now? Am I going to get a job somewhere? Will I even be done with school?

I'm looking out the window thinking of all of this today, and thinking how outside these windows the real world is carrying on at a pace I haven't exactly tested. Or I guess I won't test it because I'm afraid. I'm looking out from that window hoping it pours only because even if its only for a little while, I feel like the rain will slow things down and maybe snuggled up in the comfort of my warm blanket, a plan will come to me.