Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Seasonal transitions.

It's winter?! Crazy talk! Even though it was 25 degrees this morning, I'm going to deny it. I am not going to deny it as hard as I did last week, though. I froze my ass off! Today I wore my ski jacket (and I was still cold).

It is, however, that point in the semester that everyone seems to just throw in the towel. The sweatpants and ponytails come out to play. It's cold and it's dark at 5pm. I guess people feel like no one can see them anymore, and stop showering. That's fine with me. I'm nearly a self-professed hippie-lifestyle-lover.

I'm in the library now and I just turned around to see dozens of clusters of chattering youth! I thought I knew them all! It isn't true. I don't even know a-one. But we're all in the library right now with winter coats at our feet, nesting.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

M&Ms

Small ones, round ones, big ones, oval ones, colors, all pink, Christmas themed, I buy them all. I buy them quietly and hide them in my room and one by one they disappear. I buy M&M's like a drug. My good friends know that I'm never without them, and my best friends know that they can tell how I'm feeling by how many I've eaten. I keep bags of them in my bedroom in a wicker basket an old boyfriend once gave me. Poetic, isn't it? Obviously and disgustingly poetic. Another disgusting habit is keeping everything that once made me happy. That means old postcards, letters, and ticket stubs, but it also means acorns John once left in my pocket when I wasn't looking and found later to just think of him and smile all over my pretty fucking face. Cute? Sweet? Gross. So gross. Masochistic even.

I have all sorts of things all over the place, not even just in Knoxville, but in Nashville, too. The bones of my failed relationships are degrading all over Tennessee. I have birthday cards, love notes, letters, freaking fall leaves. I have gifts, books, and yarn from scarves never made. You name it; I've got it. I even still find small pieces of relationship hidden in my room: on post-its in books or inside boxes. When I finally feel like they have all been found and appropriately dealt with, I find a card addressed to my old room's address and signed, "yours." This is exactly why I am never without the colorful, small, big, oblong, or round, perfect, necessary, M&M.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Seventeen


2004-2005, when I was seventeen, was the best year of my life. Every year I challenge myself to outlive it, be more than it and I never can. I'll turn 21 years old in a couple of weeks and I want to challenge myself again, to make this year beat my 17th. I got my first car when I was 17: black, foxy, sports car that hugged corners like it was a yo-yo goin' 'round the world. I spent the summer with friends: Lara, Kelsey, Kim. We played kickball in the park in the middle of the night with a gang of teens that laughed and didn't even drink. But yesterday, kayaking in a glassy nook of a lake laden with waves, I realized sitting in the peace, that it was the absolute perfect temperature. The sun hugged my back and the air was cool enough that I noticed my cheeks. Hannah was on my left and Brent on my right and we just sat there, in the quiet.

This year that is about to close, as my personal New Year's draws near, is a strong rival to number 17. I went to Colorado this year. I saw moose and peaked mountains. I lived in honest freedom, and now Obama is our President-elect, and this is a good year. This is a very good year. This year is something of the beautiful, something of the change, something of the hope. This year is one to love hot tea, try every week to complete a crossword puzzle, appreciate all kinds of cheeses and give Mexican food a chance. This is that year, and it will always be that year. So, in reality, there can be no rival to 17. There never was, because it stands alone, as a great year of change and new independence. I appreciate it by itself, as I should every year.

In two weeks, I will be 21 years old. I will not be the image from my twelve-year-old mind that thought far far into the future. I will not be anything more than two weeks old than today. But for my personal New Year's, I grant myself a new challenge: leave fuller than you came, Stephanie. Leave fuller than you came.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

(Click!)

(Right now, I'm eating leftover Chinese food with wooden chopsticks on the floor of my first college apartment.)

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Yes We Can.

In the final days of campaign season, I feel like I have been listening intently to political rhetoric for over a year now. My roommates and I are hosting an "Election Return Party" and there is talk of a victory bike ride, naked, if Obama wins. I'm almost positive it will end up being a near-naked bike ride, if anything. But, deep down I feel like the whole country will be wanting to do a victory lap of some sort when (note: 'when' not 'if') Obama wins. We deserve something good, especially while we are all dealing with so much shit, daily.

Good things happen even through economic and climatic crises. Good things like friends coming in town. Jordan came over and we walked all over my neighborhood and through the Old Grey Cemetery. I took all the pictures on this disposable camera (yeah, I know, they still make those?) I bought almost three years ago. I took some pictures with my digital camera, too and I'm realizing how much I really love taking pictures.

The colors were gorgeous. I think the best colors of fall in the city are in cemeteries. They are also the most quiet and respected outdoor places in metropolitan areas.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Some ask why

Every move we make can be a step in the right direction. We can make things around us better with every facial expression, with every word, with every movement. I think that's a neat concept.