C'est Cheese

I haven't posted in a very long time. I think it's because I'm keeping busy and happy.
I barely have time to do the dishes, let alone write a livejournal entry.
In any case, here is the rundown of everything.

I'm going to Chippewa Valley Tech College this year. I'm unhappy about it, but I can't do much about it. By the time I decided not to go to Pennsylvania, almost all of the college application deadlines had passed. I would have been happier going to U-Wisconsin Eau Claire, but they wouldn't accept me because they only counted one credit of my two credits of foreign language as valid. Damn bureaucracies.
CVTC isn't terrible. My teachers are great. The bad thing is the curriculum is much too easy. Not only am I stuck taking generals, but I'm taking generals I've already taken in high school. In fact, in the cases of English and Government, the high school classes were harder.
Luckily, the teachers mostly make up for it. Especially my physics teacher. He is wonderful. He reminds me so much of my father, and he clearly likes me a lot. Physics is my favorite class, hands down.
So far, I like college infinitely better than high school. I've had none of the problems I used to have with getting homework done. Usually I'd be hovering at about a C- right now, but I have solid A's in all my classes. It's so much easier to do work when I don't have 7 solid hours of school every single day.
With any luck, I'll transfer out of CVTC and into UWEC within three semesters. Possibly two, if I feel like killing myself with 18 credits and a job next semester. We'll see.


Speaking of job, work is amazing. I love my job. I've been sort-of promoted, so that I'm doing my boss's job in the early mornings, and Alex is doing what used to be my job. Tuesday through Friday, I wake up between 3 and 4AM, go to work at 5, and leave for class at 9. Saturday, I go to work at 4AM and leave at 2PM.
I don't feel guilty in saying I'm good at my job. It's something I'm very proud of, and one of the few areas I can claim drastic success. I'm a good baker now. I'm really good at what I do, and I have clear, tangible results. Do you have any idea how amazing a feeling that is for a chronic underachiever?


Etrayu and I have officially moved in together. It's pretty wonderful. If there's supposed to be a point where you get tired of each other and start fighting and hating each other, we haven't got there. We're used to each other and comfortable with each other. We had one very brief rocky period, but then we realized it was only because neither of us had had anything good to eat or enough sleep or showers for the past three days, so it was quickly remedied.

Etrayu is the clear, obvious reason I didn't go to Pennsylvania like I had planned. In December, I knew I liked him a lot, but I wasn't willing to give up what I saw as my future for him. In January, I started to feel a few doubts. By the time February came around, I was feeling like an idiot for planning to run away from him, and in March I knew I was never going to go to Pennsylvania. I love him, and he's my future. The reasons I had to go to Pennsylvania now seem silly and pale next to him, and I feel ridiculous for ever thinking I would leave him. I can't leave him now. Even if suddenly Delaware Valley College offered me a full scholarship and the best Food Science program in the country, and Sean told me he loved me and he'd changed, and I found a wonderful place to live; I wouldn't think of accepting. I'll go wherever he does, and he'll do the same for me.

My mom talking about her cancer.


"The doctors wanted me to have radiation therapy, so I asked them to show me some studies showing that having radiation would actually improve my chances. They pulled out a study that said radiation therapy reduced the chance of recurrence in the same breast by 10-14%.
So I asked, What about survival rates? Do women who get radiation therapy live any longer than women who don't?
No, they said.
So why the hell should I spend money on an astronomically expensive therapy, one that has many many side effects and is often utterly miserable, when it won't even impact how long I live?"


"The surgeon wanted me to get a mastectomy. I asked if there was any difference in survival rates between women who had just a lumpectomy (surgically removing a lump) versus a mastectomy (removal of the whole breast). He said no, there was no difference between the two procedures.
I asked, Why would you want me to cut off my whole breast when just removing the lump would do the same thing? That's a horrific procedure so why even suggest it, much less push for it?
He said, In my experience, women with cancer are so terrified of the cancer that it is more comforting and psychologically satisfying for the whole breast to be taken away.
The idiot! Not only did he try to push a procedure I didn't really need, but he assumed I was one of those women who wanted my whole breast gone! He didn't ask, he assumed! Well, I didn't want my whole breast gone, but I wouldn't have known any better if I had just trusted him and let him take the whole breast off! He would never have told me I didn't have to go through that, he just would have let me suffer without even considering whether I actually wanted my breast gone!"

I fail at keeping a travel diary.

I did really well in Italy! Honestly that was because we didn't DO that much in Italy. We were always in one place and only went out a couple times a day. But for this trip, we were always going going going gone. It's really hard to keep up with a travel diary like that.

So, yeah. I'm back. And I only reached day 7 of a 30 day travel diary. It's really kind of sad. Maybe someday I'll finish it, but I doubt it. I'm sorry.

Day 6 is fairly lazy for the morning and afternoon. I'm writing this on day 11, so I don't really remember much about the first half of the day. If I recall, we lounge around the pool for a few hours. The evening is the fun part, anyways.

Mike and Tammy make an excellent dinner for all of us. Extremely tasty. Everybody has some alcohol. Etrayu is the most sober person, having ingested only one beer. Nobody is exactly drunk, but we're all extremely tipsy. Somehow we start a discussion about philosophy at the dinner table, which consists of Etrayu, Derek, and me trying to explain Zeno's most annoying paradoxes to Terry and Tammy. It's one of the most hilarious things I've ever heard, and I laugh myself silly. Philosophy should not be discussed when everybody is tipsy.

At some point during the evening, Etrayu makes the grievous mistake of insulting the genre of country music. This forces Uncle Mike to turn the stereo on to ear-shattering decibel level of country music. It's fantastic. Suddenly the dinner party is a dance party. We all dance around, sometimes the kids hijack the music and play some swing, the rest of the time it is country. Finally, we stumble up to bed and fall unconscious immediately.



Day 7 is June 16, and also my eighteenth birthday!

There is lots of planning and surprising going on throughout the day. I'm not allowed in certain rooms at certain times, and Etrayu keeps coming upstairs to distract me with kisses because it's the only distraction that actually works on me.

For dinner, Tammy starts making pasta, and I beg my way into the kitchen, hoping to cook. I end up making a lot of dinner. It's so much fun! I had missed being in a kitchen, so letting me cook is a very good birthday present.

Apparently there is lots of planning going on. I had actually expected we would be on the road for my birthday, so it wouldn't be a big affair, but we stay at Mike and Tammy's another couple days, so they decide to go all out. Guess what kind of birthday cake they get me. No, really. Guess.

A cake made of tiramisu. Holy whoa. It is so cool. It was Etrayu's idea, of course. They're so sweet!

And I get a bunch of wonderful presents and am surrounded by people I love. It rocked! Thanks, guys! It was a great birthday.

Afternoon of Day 5, we trek to the Fort Worth Stockyards, a lovely tourist destination. Everything about the place just screams Texas. It's amazing. So we wander for a few minutes, then get lunch in a place called Riscky's Barbeque, except it is spelled Bar-B-Q.

Our waiter at Riscky's is named Lance, and he is an interesting guy. He makes jokes and laughs with us. He asks Etrayu for his order:
“Okay, kid, what do you need? ...Besides a haircut.”
Etrayu is officially nicknamed “Mop” by Lance, and is referred to as such for the rest of the meal. Lance also mentions Katie looks like Jennifer Connelly, which she kind of does. He makes fun of Derek for having the nickname “Cupcake”, and causes general hilarity the rest of the meal. He gets a large tip.

When we finish our meal, Derek and Etrayu see an old-fashioned candy store, and make a beeline for it. They are hurried, though, by Uncle Mike, who wants us to see the cowboys driving the longhorns through town. Yes, you read that correctly. They still drive cattle through the main town street. Daily.

So anyways, since the longhorns are happening in about two minutes, Derek and Etrayu rush through the place in a tizzy like five year old kids, grabbing what looks good from the barrels, and dashing to the checkout. As it turns out, in their rush they misread the pricing, and they end up paying about forty bucks for a measly bag of candy. It would be funny, if they weren't so sad. They look like puppy dogs.

After watching the longhorns (large, smelly, and very boring) Mike drags us to the mechanical bull. Ohhhh dear. He tries to get Derek and Etrayu to ride it, but Etrayu refuses because he is not insane. Derek, Mike, and Katie all do, though. Mike does pretty well. Derek does better, and his wipeout is amazing. Instead of just falling off into the padded area, he falls onto the pads, then bounces over the wall and falls on the grass. The guy running the bull says that almost never happens, but when it does, it's hilarious. Katie does the best, she stays on the bull really long.

After the bull, we wander around Fort Worth a little more, go into shops, don't buy anything because it's so overpriced. We leave, go home, lay around a little while, and go out for awful Mexican food that makes Derek sick.

Saturday morning, we make an excellent brunch of french toast and enough bacon to feed a small army, or in this case, just barely enough bacon to placate Derek and Etrayu. Have I mentioned those two are rather fond of bacon? By the time they finish eating, the table resembles a savaged carcass on the Serengeti.

Derek and Etrayu work out more this morning. I have a feeling that by the time we leave Mike and Tammy's, the smell of their exercise sweat will have seeped in to the walls and the floor, and they'll have to get the room steam cleaned. Ick.

We go swimming again this afternoon. We make sure the boys remember sunscreen this time. They still get burned. The sunburns from yesterday they promised would be gone are still there, and with another sunburn on top of that, they resemble lobsters.

After swimming, we get all gussied up and trek to a nearby town called South Lake. The downtown is extremely upscale and pretty. I get two cookbooks in Anthropologie: a cookbook for seasonal foods, and one that Etrayu buys me as a birthday present. The second one is more my present to him, since it is full of recipes focused around honey, and he is a honey fanatic. Seriously. Mike and Tammy had a nearly-full gigantic bottle of honey when we first got here, and now it is about halfway empty. Etrayu floods his coffee with honey.

The kids and the adults split, and Derek, Etrayu, Katie, and I go to a nice little Italian restaurant for dinner. The pizza is great, though the restaurant is extremely crowded and loud. Something odd happens, though. We're all sitting there, chatting, when the waitress breezes by us (obviously very busy, since it's the dinner rush) and, barely pausing, dumps something from a small, plain, white styrofoam cup into Derek's Dr. Pepper, and ducks back into the kitchen.

We stare at each other, all too baffled to say anything to her. Did they run out of pitchers and she just used a styrofoam cup to do refills because it was what was available? Whatever she pours in there looks like it was Dr. Pepper. But what if it isn't? Did she spike Derek's drink? We don't see any other waiters walking around with white styrofoam cups. It's very creepy. Derek shares Etrayu's soda for the rest of the night.

After food, we go to the town square and notice a couple guys busking. One plays guitar, the other sings. They're singing mostly pop songs that everybody knows, but we request an original. It's pretty good! We stand listening to them for a while, and draw a bit of a crowd. Then a security guy from one of the restaurants around the perimeter of the town square comes by and tells them they have to move – somebody at the restaurant complained about the “noise”. They move about ninety feet in the opposite direction and set up again. They're cheeky guys, and we laugh at their nerve in continuing to play.

We browse around the shops for a little while. It's pretty easy to tell that we're from out of town, so we get asked where we're from and what we're doing here and where we're going. In one store, a girl working there asks me about our road trip, and is so adorably fascinated I can hardly keep from laughing. She is literally openmouthed in amazement.
“Wisconsin?! Whoaa! How long is your road trip going to be?”
“About a month.”
“Oh my gawwwsh! That's so long! Do you guys have like, jobs or something?! How did you get off?”
“Well, the boys don't have jobs, so they're safe. My boyfriend's mother can work on the road. I work for a tiny bakery, so my boss is pretty lenient and she was incredibly kind enough to give me the time off.”
“Wowww.” She stands openmouthed for a few moments, just staring. “So who do you stay with?”
“Right now we're with some of my boyfriend's family. Later we'll stay with more friends and family, and hotels in between.”
“Oh gosh...” More stunned silence. “Won't that get expensive?”
“I suppose, but we've been saving for a while.”
“Wow. Which one is your boyfriend?”
I point. “The one with the curly frizzy hair over there.”
“Oh my gosh! He is so cute. You go girl!”
It goes on like that for a while. She's a little ditzy, but oh-so-adorable.

No progress so far on the Derek and Katie angle. They both like each other and each knows the other person likes them, but they still haven't done anything. AUUUGHH.

Mike and Tammy's (Etrayu's aunt and uncle) neighbors have a lovely pool. They're out of town for a little while, and they gave permission before they left for us to utilize the pool while they were gone. It is AMAZING. It has salt water instead of chlorination, so you can open your eyes underwater without pain, and avoid the hideous chemical frizz of hair. Etrayu's hair is amazing after swimming, it seems the salt water gives him smooth, shiny ringlets, instead of his usual wooly mass of insanity. It's pretty cool.

Of course we swim when the sun is highest, and of course the boys forget sunscreen, and of course they burn to a crisp. They are confident that, “Oh, it'll turn to tan overnight.” We'll see. Their backs are so lobster red that we take pictures. Check facebook if you want to see them. They are such babies. “Augh, it hurts, it hurts! So much pain... will you put aloe on my back, please, Ariel? You have soft hands...” They're babies, but they are so cute when they're milking their pain for all it's worth.

Mike and Tammy have oh-so-kindly set up air mattresses for us kids in an empty lounge room. Etrayu and I take one, Derek takes the other. However, by morning we discover Derek's mattress must have a leak, when I look at his bed and cannot find him, only to discover he has sunk so deep into the mattress he is almost invisible and completely enveloped. It's pretty hilarious to watch him try to climb out.

Derek and Etrayu discover Mike and Tammy's exercise room. They decide that, vacation notwithstanding, they are going to kill themselves daily with insanely tiring workouts in the mornings. This morning they run three miles each, lift weights, and do some ridiculous aerobic stuff that has them sweating like pigs. I feel terrible for the next person to use that workout room. When they finally finish, the room is about ten degrees hotter than the rest of the house, and smells like a boy's locker room. The whole rest of the day, they complain about how tired and stiff and sore they are. Aww. Poor babies.

Only in Oklahoma can you see this on the side of the freeway: A fat naked man, sitting on top of a beat-up car, with a tiny sign reading “for sale” held strategically in front of his goods. (Or, as Derek and Etrayu referred to them, his “bads”.) It was horrific, and unfortunately it is a sight I cannot un-see.

We are in Texas now, and I am writing this on the laptop on the road. We've seen some very odd things from the highway. For example. A restaurant called “Rumpy's Bakery and Deli,” and a sign saying “Thelma's Down-Home Health Center.”

Etrayu would like me to tell everyone that there are lots of cacti here. This is completely false, since we haven't seen a single cactus since arriving in Texas. Of course, we only arrived in Texas about twenty minutes ago. When I said I wasn't writing that down, Etrayu started singing “Don't Let the Truth Get in the Way (Of a Good Story)” by Gaelic Storm.

We just passed by an auto junkyard, and Etrayu and Derek desperately wanted to go run around and play on all the cars. It's very exciting, traveling with children.

We have now arrived at Etrayu's aunt and uncle's house. They are extremely nice people, and I like his cousin Katie also. Derek likes her as well. A lot. Etrayu and I are trying to devise plans to get them to end up in a room together so they can get to the smooching, already.

Also: Texas is really hot.
No, really.
Like, amazingly hot.
Really hot.
And humid.
Like you're swimming.
Really humid.
REALLY HOT AND HUMID.

Some of you may know, others may not, that I am on a month-long road trip with Etrayu, Derek, and Etrayu's mother. We are heading in the general direction of California, then in the general direction of home, but stopping pretty much everywhere in between on the way. Hence the fact that it is a month long.


Day 1 was supposed to begin around 4 AM. The plan was to be out the door at 5 AM, so we could reach St. Louis in time to see the arch, which apparently Etrayu's grandfather had insisted we see. But on Tuesday night, we decided to skip the arch altogether, and thus avoid the ridiculous hour.
Neither Etrayu, Derek, nor I have much of any sleep Tuesday night anyways. Derek has trouble sleeping before about 3 AM, and since we woke up at 6, that made for a bit of a restless night for him. Etrayu and I spent more time cuddling, chatting, arguing over blankets, and attempting not to push each other off the bed than we did actually sleeping. Oh well. We wake up a little before 6, shower, and eat breakfast.
Preparation in the morning is... interesting. We had planned to leave around 7 or 8, we end up leaving about 11:30. The car is so stuffed full it's pretty comical. Lots of food, lots of clothes, lots of Etrayu's mom's makeup. Luckily everyone seems to take everything with fairly good humor.
Derek is antsy. He can't wait until we reach Texas. In Texas is Etrayu's cousin Katie. Derek and Katie have large crushes on each other, which sprouted when Katie came to visit for Christmas.
I am navigating, which is fun, and also means I get to sit in the front seat next to Etrayu's mom, with more foot room. Etrayu and Derek are relegated to the back seat, where they are wedged in so tightly between the luggage and food that they look like afterthoughts we decided to throw in the car after the lunch boxes and bags. They quickly produce their GameBoys, so they are completely entertained for the entirety of the rest of the trip.
Navigation goes well, with very few scary “OH GOD TURN RIGHT THERE YES THERE FIVE FEET IN FRONT OF US” moments. I am fucking terrified of city driving. I don't know what it is, but when my dad drives, I am totally fine. I think it must just be that I'm used to his rhythm of acceleration and method of driving, or something like that. But the whole time we're driving on crowded interstate, I am restraining screams. I hate driving at the best of times, so city driving is horrific. Of course it has nothing to do with how good at driving Etrayu and his mother are, they're bother perfectly talented drivers. I'm just flipping TERRIFIED of city driving with anybody but my dad. It's weird. But yeah. Lots of passenger seat driving.
In summary, today went very smoothly and we are in a place called Lawrence, Kansas, which is quite similar to Eau Claire, but with a more upscale downtown area. I will update more when we have switched locations.
P.S. Derek saw a couple scraps of paper floating in the water of the hotel pool. He thought they were pieces of fish. It took Etrayu and me about ten minutes to stop laughing at him.

"The best artists know what to leave out. They know how much of the support should show through as the pigment is applied, what details aren't necessary. They suggest, and let the viewer fill in whatever else is needed to make the communication complete. They aren't afraid to work with a smaller palette, to delete excess verbiage or place rests on the musical staff, for they know that almost every creative endeavor can be improved with a certain measure of understatement. For isn't it the silence between the notes that often gives music its resonance? What lies between the lines of the poem or story, the dialogue the actor doesn't speak, the pauses between the dancer's steps? The spaces can be just as important as what's distinctly portrayed."

-Dream Harder, Dream True



"Joe takes a breath, head cocked as he listens to what Johnny's playing. Then, just as he tightens his lips around the reeds, he sees the woman sitting there off in a dark corner, alone at her table, black hair, black dress, skin the same midnight tone as Joe's own so that she's almost invisible, except for the whites of her eyes and her teeth, because she's looking right at him and she's smiling.
Dark eyes, she's got, like there's no pupils, watching him and not blinking, and Joe watches her back. He's got one eye that's blue and one eye that's brown, and the gaze of the two of them just about swallows her whole.
But Joe doesn't lose the music, doesn't hesitate a moment; his sax wails, coming in right when it should, only he's watching the woman now, Johnny's forgotten, and the music changes, turns slinky, like an old tomcat on the prowl. The woman smiles and lifts her glass to him."

-Saxophone Joe and the Woman in Black



"-What do you mean by oblivion?
-You have to be remembered. People have to think about you. If they don't, you just disappear. That's what happens to all those people who vanish mysteriously. Not enough people were thinking about them and eventually they faded away. They were simply forgotten, remembered only when they disappeared -- BECAUSE they disappeared -- and then it was too late, of course. You can't bring back what doesn't exist anymore.
-Too late for those of us left behind, maybe, but you still exist somewhere, or I wouldn't be talking to you, would I?
-Sometimes I can't decide if I am actually dead -- or alive, but somehow become invisible. Unheard, unseen, unable to taste or feel...
-I can't see you, but I can hear you.
-Perhaps you are imagining my voice. Perhaps you are dreaming.
-I think I'd know if I was asleep or not. Besides, I never have dreams this interesting."

-The Pochade Box



"The problem is expectations.
We all buy so heavily into how we hope things will turn out, how society and our friends say it should be, that by the time we actually have a date, we're locked into those particular hopes and expectations and miss everything that could be. We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we're looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us."

-Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Cafe

I was listening to my dad on the phone. He was talking to somebody about the military, and I learned some interesting things.

---


1.

"This took place during a simulated POW-camp, run by a guy who had spent five years as a POW in Vietnam. The object was basically to be as similar to a real camp as possible, without actually killing us.

So, there was this ditch there that they called The Pit. It was really nothing but a pit full of mud, with a bit of a skin of ice over the top since it recently froze. It was more a slush pit than a mud pit.

I spent a lot of time there. I got to know that pit really well.


So, in this camp, we were kneeling on gravel for a long while, which is pretty painful when all your weight is on your knees. At the same time, one of our 'captors' was giving us a lecture about the United States government, designed to make us question our loyalty as psychological torture. This guy knew so much more about the process of our government than we did! He would ask us questions about every stage of the government, and he knew that we had no idea about any of the details, so he pointed out flaws and made us really question just what we were getting into, we knew we were in way over our heads. It was very effective, psychologically.

Midway through this lecture, he said to us, 'How can you possibly claim to love your country, when you don't even understand it?!'

I raised my hand and said, 'Sir! Are you married, sir?'

He glared at me very suspiciously, and said, 'Yes...'

'Sir, do you love your wife, sir?'

'Yes, of course...'

'Sir, do you understand her?'

...

'Throw him in The Pit.'

I was the first person to be thrown in the pit. But it was worth it. I think I got applause."

---


2.

"To go through combat, the only way to survive it, is to declare yourself dead. You go through the entirety of combat under the absolute assumption that you are going to die.
Now, that's true for the kind of war that my father was in, in World War II in Europe. Perhaps the war in Iraq or Afghanistan is not like that; I would not know. But for my father's war, he knew he would die. That was the only way to get through the war. By knowing there was no chance to live. Otherwise, you spend the entire time paralyzed with the fear you will die. Only by accepting this can you learn to live with it and function as a human being.

My father told me a story. The war was going to end very soon, and he was pulled off the front lines for new training. He was sent to a training facility to talk to someone at a beautiful castle that had been occupied and was very peaceful.
He walked into the gardens, in gorgeous courtyards. He sat down in the midst of the gardens and cried uncontrollably for 45 minutes. He had finally realized that he actually was not going to die, and when his mind finally reconciled that, his life was forever changed."

Life is great.
I have straight A's for the first time since elementary school. No work missing. Yay me.
I keep getting sick, though. That's sad.
Etrayu and Derek and I went for an adventure today. We walked down by the dam. There's a lot of ice there right now. Much of the snow melted, but there was still lots of slipperiness. Going hiking with two boys is fun, though, since whenever there was a spot involving jumping or sliding across ice I had four hands offered, and I always got caught when I slipped. I feel very safe. It was funny.
My jeans got very wet, though, from sliding on the ice. Etrayu lent me a pair of pants when we got back to his house. They actually fit really well. Sort of long, but not too bad in the waist. He's so skinny. It's amazing.
College is in the works. I decided not to go to Pennsylvania, the school I was planning on turned out to not be so great. Sadly, now all the application deadlines have passed. I did manage to sneak in an application to UW-Stout, so I'm waiting to hear back from them. I'm also going to talk to my adviser at UWEC about applying as a special student so I can take my foreign language classes and be able to apply to a normal college - since most require several years of foreign language, which I do not have.
Derek and Etrayu and I are going to try to bike the whole bike trail on Tuesday. It should still be warm. I love spring. But yeah. Biking all the way to Menomonie. We'll see if we make it the whole way, or if we turn back in Downsville.


( 1/2 story )

I thought I'd try something different. Sometimes, as I read, I imagine the writer's setting. No, not the setting of the story. I imagine where the writer was as they wrote the story I'm reading. Setting influences character's actions, so how did the writer's setting influence their own actions?
For these two, I chose writers I know personally. And I know that they don't actually write in places anything like I describe. But that is what their writing styles make me think of. My mind works oddly, but I really don't mind.




Madelynn

She closes her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose. She is peaceful, meditative, but her eyes flicker under their lids as though dreaming.
The table is cluttered. Sheafs of paper were once neatly stacked and categorized, but the papers are jostled by her clumsiness every time she rises to refill her coffee mug, which is green, and rests on a bright blue ceramic coaster. The papers are a from a variety of sources. Some are torn from notebooks, things she's written in the past and uses for reference or inspiration. Some are forms, bills, official documents, things that should really be filed but she hasn't had a chance to sort through them yet. There is another stack of computer printouts – short stories, essays, and letters she has read online and printed to refer to later.
Last Tuesday's newspaper is on the far corner of the table, missing the City/Region section, which may be in her bedroom, or may be next to the claw-footed bathtub; she isn't quite certain. Books are piled haphazardly over the stacks of papers, a few of the titles only partially visible. Sense and Sensibility, Winnie-the-Pooh, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and To Kill a Mockingbird are among the titles. A small blue cell phone is half-hidden under a red scarf.
The remains of this morning's breakfast rest on top of today's newspaper, which is open to the Wedding Announcements page. Half a grapefruit, the crumbs of a cranberry pear scone, and the dregs of her coffee (black), which she will soon get up to refill. The bright morning light shines through the window and glistens off the grapefruit juice.
The sun gives the whole scene the feel of an overexposed photograph – everything is clearer and brighter than usual, but with darkly contrasting shadows. Her face is very pale, framed by red-brown hair in a funky cut. Her clothes are simple and slightly bohemian: a flared white cotton skirt, deep blue blouse, and lacy white scarf. She twirls it in her hand when she pauses to think. Unable to sit still, she drums her fingers against the thick, distressed wood planks of the heavy kitchen table. She sighs, stares out the window at the street several stories below, waiting impatiently for someone to return.




Sean

The man shivers, and his shaking finger creates a typo. He doesn't notice yet. He shifts a little, his back rubbing uncomfortably against the hard plastic chair. It is more a stool than a chair, with a short back added more as an afterthought than for any comfort or support. The desk matches in material and design (or lack thereof) – a plain white rectangle resting on four white plastic legs.
The desk is bare save for a glass of water, and a white keyboard and monitor. The screen has nothing in the way of user interface. It is blank and white, altered only by his steady typing in Times New Roman, gradually filling the empty space. He pauses, his fingers hovering uncertainly over the keys, the cursor blinking at him slowly. His hands fall to his sides, then he raises one and unconsciously runs it through his thick dark hair, making it stand wildly on end. He rubs his face, trying to erase the thick, tired sensation from his eyes. Two days of beard stubble chafe his hands, and he glances around as though searching for a coffee mug.
He pauses and sighs, resigned to the knowledge he won't find anything but water, and leans back in the uncomfortable chair. His shoulders slump under the wrinkled black cotton of his button-up shirt. It was once stiffly pressed, but after so long in the same chair, it is heavily rumpled and creased, sloppily unbuttoned over a white T-shirt. His skin chafes against the rough denim of his jeans, and his bare feet stretch as though looking for a respite from their place against the cold white tile floor.
He leans further into the chair, tilting his head all the way back until he looks straight at the ceiling. The bright fluorescent light fills his eyes as it fills the room, leaving almost no shadows, only a soft white glow against the windowless, white walls.

Dear Willow,
I passed you in the halls most days of eleventh grade. You spent your time before school in the carpeted area in front of the library, with Etrayu, Derek, and the rest of their friends, what I then viewed as the collective group of people I couldn't classify but were still somehow cool, in a very odd way.
You fascinated me, even though we only ever had one short conversation. I doubt you knew my name, but you were unmistakable. There was no possible way for you to be anyone but Willow, anyone but who you were. You were perfect, you were genuine. Everything about you screamed that you were utterly unspoiled, that you put on no masks and didn't hide yourself behind the facade of the personality you wish you were.
We spoke once, in junior year. It was at some small orchestra event, probably a parent meeting at the beginning of the year. You accompanied a friend who is now faceless to me, I don't remember who she was. I glanced at your mismatched socks; you grinned and said you liked wearing mismatched socks because it caught people's attention and made them think about small things in life for a few seconds more than they might have otherwise.
I saw you at the simulated car crash last spring. You wore a vibrant turquoise tank top almost long enough to be a dress, with jeans underneath because it wasn't quite long enough to be modest. You were playing. That is the only possible word to describe you. Not "hanging out," not "goofing off." Playing as does a small child, without noticing what the teachers think, much less your peers. Playing on the stage of the auditorium, the ground below the stage, in the chairs, anywhere you wanted to be. You were an unpolished stone, but many times more beautiful for the lack of processing.
In that moment, I wanted so desperately to run to you and hug you. To shake your hand and say, "You don't know me, but I'm Ariel and I want to know you." To wave and grin. To ask what you were doing. Anything. Any interaction at all.
But I didn't then and I didn't ever, and I will hate myself for it forever.
When I heard of your death last summer, I cried. I had no right to cry. I had no attachment to you, I had no friendship, I had barely spoken a full sentence to you. Mourning you was a job for your friends and family.
But I loved you, in the way a coward loves. I loved you from afar. I thought, "I'll introduce myself another time. Now isn't a good time." I put it off and put it off longer. It was pure cowardice, keeping myself from doing what I truly wanted for no reason other than that I was afraid you might think I was odd, to introduce myself out of the blue.
I was a fool. Now you're dead. I've forever lost my chance. You were beautiful, and my selfish heart wishes I'd had a chance to see that beauty up close.

When someone asks how things are going, they don't often expect an answer other than "fine" or "good." Since we so often edit what we're thinking and feeling, when someone says truthfully that things are going great, the full impact and truth of that statement does not sink in.

I am really fantastic.

School is going very well by my standards (which means only about a fourth of my homework is late). I'm actually practicing violin often. I've been making new and amazing friends who fascinate me and make me laugh harder than is becoming. I have a boyfriend with whom I can communicate and have scintillating conversations, as well as the fact he's wondrously attentive and sweet and doesn't make me nervous or tired, (something I've never really found before). I have just enough time to get everything done that I need to, and I'm rarely stressed out. I'm being nice to my parents. I'm watering my plants. I'm cooking. I'm knitting. I'm writing. I'm drawing. I'm reading. I'm socializing.

I don't mean to sound smug. I'm just appreciating the small things. And the large things.

I love life.

I can listen without worrying about my own issues.

How are you?

Eric and I were walking on the bike path a couple weeks ago, and we saw an interesting message written in chalk. It said:

"5:00 PM Friday
meet me here
bikes!
on
We were
smile?
that
Remember"

Of course, if you walked or biked along the words when coming from a certain direction, it said:

"Remember that smile? We were on bikes! Meet me here 5:00 PM Friday"

It made my day. The smile must have been amazing, if it prompted somebody to go back and write a chalk message to meet somebody. Did they show up? Did they hit it off? Are they together right now?
Something that spontaneous, that sweet, and that daring, is an action people take in movies, not in real life. It was a little touch of magic to be able to see it. If it was me, I'd go.


I've been in Pennsylvania and New York, visiting colleges. Yesterday, I saw Delaware Valley College, in Doylestown, PA. It is tiny and beautiful. The school is very geared towards biotechnology and agriculture. I'm considering their Food Science major in particular, and with that, I'd most likely end up spending my life trying to rework the food and agriculture system from the inside. They've got several other very interesting majors, most of them very specialized, but in areas with a lot of job opportunities.
Today, I visited Marywood University, in Scranton, PA. Another gorgeous school, also tiny. They're more geared towards the studio arts, though their nutrition program appears very nice. Their art buildings are amazing, I'd be thrilled to take classes there. They have a strong emphasis on nutrition in the meal plans as well, which I find satisfying.
Tomorrow is Rochester Institute of Technology, and Saturday is Drexel University. Sunday we may do the touristy thing in New York, or may find someplace else to hang around.
I must check to see if Delaware Valley College offers foreign language classes. I have only had one year of foreign language, so my ideal plan is to go to a smaller college with less stringent requirements, then transfer to another after I've taken foreign language. Although these colleges have so far proven to be fantabulous enough I may stay for all four years, I suppose it depends.
I seem to have made a friend in the Delaware Valley admissions office. This should prove handy.

Dad:
Just an idle thought: with $700 billion the government could spend $35,000 each on 20 million people. You could get a pretty good education for that, launch new companies, and build a brand new economy.
Or we could bail out a few dozen irresponsible megacorps and their top executives.


Jake:
You're clearly missing the point of the *cough*corporatewelfarestate*cough* trickle-down economy.


Dad:
By definition, corporate welfare equals fascism: the partnership of state and industry. I'm pretty laissez faire, but Bush is making even me look like a socialist.
Looks like it's time to contact my congresscritters.


Me:
Wait a minute! Didn't we cover this in ninth grade US History when we were doing compare and contrast worksheets on Hoover and FDR?
I say we send our legislators through high school again. Not only would it improve the economy, but it'd provide all sorts of crazy opportunities for the reality TV industry.

Dear Ms. Woodburn,
It was lovely to see you yesterday afternoon! I wish we could have chatted longer, but duty called in the form of rapidly over-baking morning buns. I thought I should write something, as business was so wacky because of the festival that I couldn't think about anything but pastry!

You asked what my plans are after high school. At the moment, I'm applying to NYU, Boston University, Hampshire College, Dartmouth, Rochester University, and Harvard. (The last one is mostly just because of a bet with a friend, but I may as well try. It can't hurt.) I'm also applying to UWEC and UW-Stout as safety schools. If I get in to one or several of these, I'll most likely attend next year, unless they're receptive to delayed admittance, in which case I think I'll work for Marie another year.

I adore working for Marie. Of course, it's not an easy job; it's very physically demanding. But I enjoy it so much I would work there for free if that was the only way I could. Yesterday was insane -- I worked twelve hours, it was very exciting. I'm glad the festival is only once a year.
Once I actually get to college, I think I'll likely major in Nutrition, then go on to get a degree in Culinary Arts and become a chef, or I may skip the Culinary Arts and become a Nutritionist. Those are the main career contenders, but midwife, historian, teacher, and several others are still in the running.

You asked if I was still writing, and I am. I've attached a short story I thought you might enjoy.

My favorite author is Charles de Lint, and I suppose his style has influenced me, which you would notice in the story if you've read any of his works. I highly recommend his short story collections, the first one being Dreams Underfoot. I've also been reading Grimm's Fairy Tales, and for school purposes I'm currently reading the Bible, Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, In the Time of the Butterfiles by Julia Alvarez, and Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya.

I suppose I didn't have much reason for composing this e-mail other than that I'm feeling a bit sentimental. My life is progressing so well and in such an orderly manner this year, that lately the eleven year old girl I was in your class seems a complete stranger. It's not as though I miss the difficulty and struggle to become a mature human being (who would?) but it's an odd feeling, to have the pieces of your life suddenly snap into places they were always meant for, but could never find.

Your student,
Ariel Jurmain

Life in brief:
This year, I am in classes that are interesting and challenging. That's a new thing, as is doing my homework, and practicing violin, and having a job, and being part of an extracurricular activity.
As an aside; social drama is stupid and confusing. Could we make it simpler, people?
I am also high-strung lately. Avoid startling me or I may actually fall over dead.

In other news:
I was talking briefly with a freshman girl (we'll call her Jane) the other day. She was upset because some kids in her classes had noticed she wore a pentacle charm (right-side up) on a necklace, and started telling her it was a satanic symbol and she must be evil. Of course, a right side up pentacle is not supporting Satan, but that's an issue for a very different essay.

People almost always have incorrect preconceived notions about religions they don't understand. Personally, I don't subscribe to any one particular religion, but pick and choose from many, so I've never really had the issue Jane is dealing with. But what troubles me is the idealism she displayed. She was upset, not so much because she wasn't fitting in with these kids, but because they weren't open to all opinions. She said that even though she knew they didn't subscribe to her Wiccan beliefs, they should still have open minds and be understanding about it, and they should weigh her opinion just as heavily as their own.

What's going on? There's this idealistic thought that everybody is equally accepting of all beliefs and viewpoints. There can't be any wrong opinions because it all depends on your point of view, so nobody should be singled out as "wrong". I keep seeing this ideal pop up everywhere, and however much I desperately want to believe in it and support it and make it true, I can't bring myself to accept it.

It may be sad, but what we might wish for simply isn't true. One of the most basic principles of almost all major religions is that Our Way is the Right Way. I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing -- it's just how religion is. (You can't change it any more than you can change the sky, so why bother calling it good or bad?) It's the whole point! For people to be united, to have faith, they need to know, to be absolutely certain that their faith is in the right place. How can you have religion without faith?

That's why the "everybody's opinion is equally valid" thing really catches me at religion. I can't stomach it! It's too idealistic, too unrealistic, and it goes against the most fundamental concepts of religion. Religion simply isn't without faith and certainty. And you can't be certain you're right without being certain everybody else is wrong.

Jane is going to have to come to a very cynical realization if she wants to get through the world without constantly whining that she's being persecuted. I think it's much easier to make it through the world when you understand that most people think you are Wrong about at least one thing, if not many many more.

And that's all right. It's how humanity works. The only way we can all be right is if none of us have any passionate opinions. Sounds a bit boring to me. I don't so much mind being Wrong.