if there's one thing i've always wanted, it's got to be beautiful hands. elegant fingers, slim palms, tapering nails. it's not what i've got, and nail polish only makes me look cheap and chubby-fingered. i try anyway, sometimes. and so while my left hand is disastrous because the nail wand is like a drunk driver, my right hand is unbearable to look at--i'm right handed, so attempting to paint with my left hand is laughable.

memories are moments you don't get back

the first night of my summer '07 roadtrip (with the Lonehollow crew), we spent it on Mustang Island down by South Padre. we simply laid down a tarp between the two vehicles and crammed our sleeping bags together. i remember singing lullabies because i couldn't sleep, and i definitely thought everyone else was. the stars were exceptional that night--clear skies and endless space. the next morning, i woke up to the sun rising over the ocean. it was simply breathtaking. then we discovered jared had rolled over onto a sand crab in the night, crushing it underneath him. we were camped next to more than a few sand crab pits.

when i was still in high school my grammy showed up at my house about 8 'clock at night with an enormous bottle of wine under her arm. her and my mother then proceeded to drink the entire bottle. it is the only time i've ever seen my mother drunk--or the first time i saw what my grandmother would do when a situation was slipping beyond her control. my father and i followed her home, because although "she wasn't in-bree-bree-ated"...we still worried. i wish i could sit in my kitchen with my grandmother again. i wish i had known then that you don't get moments like that again.

this last week 3 year old ryland tried to play with both shoes untied. i bent down and tied them for him. when i looked up at him, without a word he simply lent forward and gave me the sweetest little-boy kiss. my heart melted a little bit.

Kristen Stewart.

Ellen Page.

Jesse Eisenberg.

Jena Malone.

Kat Dennings.

Michael Cera.

Michael Angarano.

Shia Lebeouf.

Anna Kendrick.

Anton Yelchin.

We need more old-world charm, a little more pride and work ethic to find it's way back into Hollywood. Where's the sophisticated, understated threat and emotion?

Saturday Night Fever

Unmade bed. A trashbin half-full of crumpled orange off-brand Kleenex. Empty soup bowls, passport lying next to the radio, as if the choice were that easy. Three black shirts for impressing, one white shirt for beauty. One shelf of books and DVDs so different from the bottom four, bursting with sin. Opened and unopened tea bags, origami cranes, trays of decongestion, a wall covered with wishful thinking and a guitar that stands ever-ready by the desk. Pieces of art, collecting dust.

One girl, who doesn't want to believe in rock 'n roll but whose body does. Sex, drinking, smoking--all of it so appealing but so gritty and dirty inside for the next two days. Did that cold come from the cute boy in the bar, or had it been building--was it the kissing or the pollen that did it? Or is congestion just one form of hungover?

Can love hold out, in the face of rejection? Are any of us truly courageous enough, to love unrequitedly? Or does the body demand more? Do our hormones, does our sex instinct, that ferocious drive, care for anything about fidelity? If "needs aren't met", does the body overrule the mind about matters of the heart? Who wins that tug of war? When our morality keeps us cold in bed at night, does our body find any consolation in that? If I loved from a distance, if I loved a memory, would that be enough to help me say no? Or would, eventually, I disservice what I once perceived as pure, and forgo the comforts of distant fidelity to find the pleasures of immediate release? Is it even disservice, when the object of our celibacy is unaware, of both love and cuckold?

Another Night Where I Cannot Handle My Life

I am such a woman of utter contradictions. I keep thinking I need a place to find quiet, to truly rest in my spirit, to not always be doing things. But then--when I am not doing things, I go crazy. I feel a lack of spontaneity. I think that's what I'm missing the most right now: crazy, do-it-for-no-reason, why-did-we-do-that stories we'll sit around talking about later. But who's the WE in all of this?! There's just ME, longing for campfires at the beach, conversations by the lake, stargazing on a car hood, roadtrips to faraway cities, cross-country train rides, bedding down at the house of a new friend, drinking late at night, being beautiful and young and free and unfettered and perhaps a little irresponsible.

I'm in desperate need of a roadtrip. I need to see different things, meet new people, be wild and free and spontaneous. I need change in my life. I keep waiting for something big to shift, some momentous occasion to occur...SOMETHING. (That's the idea behind a roadtrip WITH someone, and bringing a video camera.) And then I remember a tidbit of something House said in an episode Amanda made me watch. It went along the lines of "Time does NOT change things. If you just leave them alone, that's the way they'll stay. Only DOING something changes things." So I've been mulling that over too. How can I change things, what am I so bored with?

Life.

My boring job that doesn't change things, change lives, that I am not passionate about. It doesn't wake me with excitement in the morning, doesn't inspire me to greater heights. I can't get creative, throughout the day I increasingly resemble a robot--automated and emotionless. This begs the question, the dilemma I cannot resolve. Is it better to just do what I have to do so that later, I can do what I WANT to do? Is it better to suffer a little bit each day? Because honestly, what right do I have to expect a job that fully satisfies? Millions of people each day go to a job they hate. Millions of people complain about their job--it's probably one of the biggest causes of ulcers and high blood pressure in America.

Or....or....or....

Should I try to do something different? Should I dare to be brave, be courageous? I feel i would have to squeeze my eyes shut, and jump in feet-first (not head first, you break your neck that way). Months ago, I said I wanted to try things, dare to make mistakes, dare to fail...here's my opportunity, I think. Not that anything has arisen, but my mother is encouraging me to find that thing that makes me happy and to go for it. What makes me happy? The answer comes so readily to mind, it's becoming an impossible urge to ignore.

I indulge in a ridiculous fantasy: one day, someone important will hear me singing, and won't be able to resist taking me down the road to Fame. Now, I don't really want to be famous for the sake of being famous, as so many do. All I really want in this world is to sing and have people listen--moments of my heart on my sleeve, slipping out through the microphone to create Beauty in this world. It's the same reason I paint, the same reason I create, sometimes the reason I cook. It's why I drive with my window down, why I take walks in the field behind my parents' house...why I write this blog. But music, singing--that's my one true gift. It's THE thing in this world that brings my heart nearest to completion. It's hearing that one particular note, stretched high, piercing your soul, that moment you feel God must be made of music.

But I don't know how to start! I don't know where to begin! Does anyone?! Connections?! Just because I simply want it to the point of heartache doesn't mean it is simply going to happen--time doesn't do that, remember? It involves me doing something, me risking failure and chancing things. Risk, courage, change, bravery...do I have it in me?

I wish I could eat fruit, right off the core. That's the problem with braces, really. It severely limits your menu. Apples? Don't think about biting into one. Nectarines? Yeah, if you want to rearrange what took four months to move. Caramels--a thing of the past. Carrots--ouch, just thinking about it hurts. Peppermints, gum? No, you shall live without freshened breath!

I'm tired of talking about my "accomplishments" in the past tense. You know--"this one summer, I lost 30 pounds"; "when I went to London"; "In high school, I..."; "In college..." I'm sick of living on the memory of things I used to do. And it's not like any of them were that big. I'm 23, and what do I really have to show for it?

A degree. Ok, so that's legitimate. But there's a plethora of people out there with an education, and they actually know things. Most of the time, I wonder if I've learned anything in my life from formal education. Probably not. But then, I start talking to people (girls, mostly) and I discover---I was wrong. I am educated. I know things.

I went to London, alone. Also legit. However--that time has passed. It was 10 days across the pond--five months ago. It was amazing, and the time there was so worthwhile, and taught me so much--but what have I done with what I've learned?

I'm deciding that things are going to happen again, because I will make them, if I have to. I just have to find the sticking factor--find that thing that helps me hold on; my perseverance, so to speak.

Invitation to Voyeurism

September is my favorite month. It's the farewell of Summer, the sad sighing au revoir of a few outdoor months well played. It's the last caress through my hair of a warm breeze headed south. It's the welcome of a few months of glorious disrobing, Nature's invitation to voyeurism. I always scramble to fit in the last few moments of sunshine, to inhale every last scent of a fading summer. September 30th is a sad day for me (aside from it being my sister's birthday, of course).

But then I step outside, and one look at the sky changes my mind: October is here. Autumn has arrived, and she is lovely. There isn't a blue much deeper than an October sky; I always feel I could look and look and still not see the end of it. The leaves crunch some, then there are those who stubbornly cling to the end. These are probably women. There is a feeling in the air, a sense of possibilities. The whole world is changing--might not my life change as well?

The spicy sweet aroma of an autumn apple. When I was a child, my uncle had gardens everywhere, complete with an apple orchard and a few raspberry and black berry bushes. When October came, the apple trees were heavy-laden with palm-sized red ripeness. The smell in the air is impossible to describe--how do you translate the essence of an apple? How can I tell you, how can I show you, what delight it was to bite into that new, warm, sun-ripened apple? My mouth opened wide in eager anticipation, teeth reveling in the satisfying crunch! of the ripe fruit, my lips suctioned to the slightly fuzzy skin of an unwashed apple, tongue waiting to lick every drop of juice from the fruit or off my hand. The most incredible part is that you can actually taste the sun. That apple's grown in the sunshine it's whole life and now the sun is made flesh--the white flesh of an orchard apple.

The blackberries--like little pieces of shadow that melted. Really--the sun filters through the blackberry bushes, and it's like the shadow pieces got too hot, so they bunched up and became berries. I'm not particularly fond of blackberries; on the list they're right above blueberries but that's all. So I can't really talk about what they tasted like--only what they looked like.

However, I love raspberries. Not store-bought, mind you. Only ones I've picked myself, half smashed and vine-ripe. I love how there's still a bit of dirt on them, how dust clings in the little curves of the berry. When you put them on your tongue, you don't get the tart part, not right away. First you smash the berry against the roof of your mouth, let the juice fill your mouth. I like to feel how full the berry was, feel like it was a mouth of someone, maybe, the way my own puckers around it, how my lips feel deliciously swollen and wicked. A lover's mouth? Full, ripe, tart, tasting like the earth, tasting like the sun? Would the mouth of my lover bring me as much delight as this, this hard-won tartness that lists a fraction of a minute?And it is hard-won: I usually walked away from the raspberries covered with scratches from the thorns. But worth it.

So too is the Autumn--it is a hard thing, to say goodbye to the summer. To bid farewell to all of those lazy afternoons drifting in the river. Sometimes it is too steep a price, to welcome in the thunderclouds, for then I lose those startlingly clear starlit nights, where deep calls to deep and the design of the stars matches the design of my soul. But then again, it too, is worth it. What would October be without sweatshirts and chilly fingers (and a cup of hot tea to warm them?), without pumpkins and soups and extra quilts laid on my bed? No, I love the change, hard as it is to part with the familiar.