Monday, November 24, 2008

Forture teller says maybe you won't go to hell

He sounds so sure of himself. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and he makes me want to take his words for truth. He's in a place that is much different then than the place I find myself in on a day to day basis. He has his entire life planned out for him. He knows what he'll do, and he knows who he'll be with when he does it. He knows where he'll be and, who he wants to be. I feel completely different about the future. I feel like I have a million ideas, and a million passions, and none of the resources or knowledge to do anything with any of them. I feel like the seeds of a dandelion when you blow gently on it's petals. I'll just float in the wind until I land. And maybe I'll end up somewhere that I can flourish and finally become what I was meant to be. Or maybe I'll end up in a pile of scurrying ants (which I'm allergic to). Or maybe I'll land on someones driveway, amongst the steel framed cars and skid marks. I don't think that dandelions can grow through cement but maybe I'll be the first.

I just feel like a few years ago I had everything, and then in a matter of unconnected moments I lost it all. It's like I went to a fortune teller and there was a crack in her crystal ball. And she had no idea what to say to me about a life marred with cracks in the fragile glass surface of my life. And that scares me, but it also thrills me. I like not knowing, even though not knowing is what keeps me not sleeping. But I guess what I'm saying is that he might have it all figured out, and maybe I don't. But I guess I'm not scared at all, of the cracks in the crystal ball.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Nothing

Remember those times when I was full of funny anecdotes and maudlin tales? This is not one of those times. I am so absolutely empty in life right now that I have absolutely nothing to talk about. So sorry for the lack of updates.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Is There A Light At The End of This Road?

Yesterday I was restless as soon as I woke up. Sometimes I can't help myself, I like to be running, running, running, all of the time. No one was home, so I wouldn't have my sister as my partner in crime. It was too early for any of my regular cohorts to be awake. I had money that was burning a hole in my pocket, and a thirst to buy some books. I looked up a used book store in a small city just fifteen minutes away from my house. I grabbed my dad's TomTom, and was out the door. I got there with no problems surprisingly since I am notoriously bad about driving on interstates, and getting lost at every chance I get.

But I did get to the Second Hand Prose Book Shop. Sadly, the building did not offer what I thought was promised. Instead of pages and pages of exciting books, books that would make me laugh out loud, books that would teach me something about life, or love, or both. Instead it offered romance novels as far as the eye could see. Clearly, there was a problem here that I did not expect. But since I drove the twenty miles out, I was going to buy a book whether or not it was one I actually wanted. I found a battered copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger sitting lonely on the only bookshelf that did not have anything with a muscled man with an open and billowing shirt on the cover. I paid the three dollars for it, and took it home.

On my way home however I ran into a snag. I misunderstood the GPS, and took a wrong on ramp and ended somewhere thirty minutes away from home before i noticed anything was wrong. My phone was dead, so I couldn't call for help. All I could do was freak out, and worry. I drove, and drove, and drove not knowing where I was or where I would end up. The TomTom was worthless at this point. There were no road signs, just miles and miles of empty highway. I don't think I've ever been so scared. I never realized how scary being lost actually is. Not knowing where you'll end up, or whether or not you'll ever make it back home. It's a frightening thought. You start to think of the people you left behind, the faces you may never see again. You could get in a wreck, and die forty miles from home and no one might ever know what happened to you. You might end up somewhere strange and not have enough money to get home. Your name becomes foreign to your loved ones, and you walk around a strange place as just another nameless face. You can fade into obscurity in a minute once you're lost.

But then I started to like the idea of getting lost. The idea that you could start over anywhere else. You could pick a new name for yourself, a new identity, even a new accent. Anything is possible when no one knows who you are. And something about that appeals to me. I haven't always been happy with the way my life is turning out, not exactly how I always thought that it would. I always thought there would be something more. Maybe it a person that's missing from my life that I haven't met yet. Maybe it's a career, or a promise for the future. Maybe it's some sense of accomplishment that I have yet to achieve. I don't know what it is exactly but maybe I could find it somewhere new. And I gave it a serious thought for a moment. I really did. Then I came to my senses and took the nearest exit and stopped to ask for directions. I guess I realized that I could live anywhere, but I can only be at home in one place. And that place is here.

We're In The City of Wonder

I spent Halloween with the kind of friend that I don't spend enough time with. The kind of friend that every few months or so I take off the shelf, dust her off and have an amazing night with. We went to a local haunted house where all of the proceeds were donated to charity. It takes a special kind of friend to go to an event that has the chance to be even slightly frightening with me. I am the biggest pussy in the entire world. Although I'd like to say that means that I'm just a six foot tall vagina walking around with a hulking clitoris flapping in the wind, but sadly that's not exactly what I mean.

I mean that I am the archetype for easily frightened people. I am the perfect audience for scary movies, because I gasp in all the expected places. When the foreboding music cues up, I hold my legs close to my body. I hide my eyes, and scream. I can't help it this is just the way I was wired to be I guess. I think I get it from my mother, who freaks out at sudden movements and ordinary noises. But anyway, I am not the kind of person you want to go with when things have the opportunity to be scary. But Nicole was up to the challenge for that and I commend her. She didn't flinch once as twenty somethings dressed as zombies attacked from across the room. She did not push me aside when I grabbed for her hand in the dark. She did not yell at me, when I stepped on her feet trying desperately to get away from the man with the chainsaw standing in the corner. She took it like a professional, and I commend her for that one. It's not easy being my friend sometimes, but I'm always willing to buy you a cherry limeade from Sonic so I would say I'm probably worth it in the long run.

After that we drove out of town, further into this part of the state than I'd ever been before. It was the kind of place where grass grows all the way up to the bottoms of houses on cinder blocks. The kind of place where coyotes roam free, and their howls fill the night. We go tout of the car, on a deserted, dusty road and looked into the sky. I wish I could say that I was a smaller town where you could see the stars as perfectly as you could there. I've never seen so many of them all at once. And right then I knew that the zombies could attack, bring them on. As long as I ot one last good look at those stars I'd be ready to join them.