Choke

* to stop by strangling, stifling
Like Pavlov's dogs, I respond to their reactions. An endless cycle of act and react, the latter beginning to paralyze me.

* to stop the breath by squeezing or obstructing the windpipe
The more they squeeze, the faster I run. After all, I have to breathe.

* to suppress an emotion
I will not give in to the angerandfrustration. I will swallow it again and again and again. And though I am full on it, though it rises up in my throat, I will choke back the words and bite my tongue; shed blood in my mouth to keep the peace.

* to check or slow down the movement, growth, or progress of
Aging faster than I'd like to admit and surrendering my independence inch by inch. As the days grow closer to thirty years, I grow more and more emotionally crippled.

* to fill chock-full; jam
And it's like this over and over again in my life...memories flood back to me. Thirty years of redirection through tense silence and direct assault. In the classic words of parents everywhere, I've had it up to here.

* to enrich the fuel mixture by diminishing the air supply
It crushes my ribs, collapses my lungs and pushes every last bit of air out of me. I am gasping. But the independence that's been jammed down to the pile simmers, threatens to ignite.

* to seize with a chain, a cable or the like to facilitate removal
It's time to free my independence and move forward. To rise above and sail away. With the fire fueled quietly, kindling underneath the surface, I fan the spark.

* to shorten one's grip on
I'm firming up my grip on myself and my emotions, preparing my grasp for what promises to be a fight. I flex my fingers, try to be strong and dig in.

* to fail to perform effectively because of nervous agitation or tension
Again and again, I shy away from the confrontation. I choke under the onslaught of terse words, unpronounced judgments. I forget how to be me. I forget how I want to be. Because I'm trying so hard to be what they want me to be.

* to become speechless from the effects of stress or emotion
And I realize after all these years, I can no longer say I'm sorry. I know they want me to have words for why I am as I am. Why I am different. Why I break the mold. Why I go forth, marching to the beat of a drummer no one else hears. And truly, there are no words other than to say I am me. I am me.

* a slight narrowing of the barrel of a shotgun to concentrate the shot
Choking on the crowd of selves trying to prevail, I narrow my focus. I have to push the one I want to the front. I have to be to the world as I am. I have to be true. I have to make independence my target. I have to keep my inherent fragility in my sights. I have to be ready, aim, fire and shoot-to-kill the illusion of me that threatens to destroy the reality.

Confession

In my eagerness to have the house to myself, I just effectively "hustled" my parents out the door.

TTLY Syndrome

I've always had a particularly pronounced sense memory. Smells, sounds, even a certain atmosphere, light - all provoke the return of sharp visceral memories for me. This little trick came in handy at times during acting classes when I was in college. But on a day to day basis, this sensitivity piles up into what I refer to as TTLY Syndrome or "This Time Last Year Syndrome" (TTLYS).

The oppressive heat and humidity of the last fews days have thrown me into last year's frame of mind. Indeed, the past few weeks have brought on a bewildering myriad of memories. This time last year, I was interviewing for The Job. I was feeling bereft and rootless. I was waiting.

And inside, away from the shimmering heat, in the cool darkness of my brain, the chemicals were sliding out of the proper equation. My stomach was burning, turning itself inside out almost every night. The Panic was coming.

This time last year was a tipping point, away from what was and toward what is. It was a precarious lean into the unknown. Everything was tossed into the air, floating down in a slow-motion freefall with no end in sight. Everything was all questions and no answers. The unknown was my only friend.

It's back again, like a second wave. I am waiting. Waiting for a movement away from this stalemate of grief. This terrible endgame, all the pieces on the board and nowhere to go. The Panic is rising. I waffle on the edge of nausea, try to push it down, pray through it. The unknown is siddling up next to me...it's reminding me that in a year, I haven't made very many strides. I haven't built the life I envisioned.

The heat lashes down on me when I walk out of work each day. I stumble through the evenings, fight the TTLYS washing through my veins. I remind myself that I have moved down the road, made progress. That I'm waiting and panicking and befriending the unknown because I had not choice when life jumped the rails in February.

Tonight, Dad said to me, "I feel like...we're never going to be normal again." And somehow, seeing the weight of it on his face, hearing the crushing reality in his words, I thought, "Not any time soon."

As I stare down the barrel of TTLYS right now, I rue the next season of it - the last season where everything was normal. And that season followed by the one where everything fell apart.

Occurences

Haircut - On Saturday, I accompanied Anna to the salon for a haircut. It was monumental because a) she had grown her hair out for Locks of Love b) she hadn't had her hair cut since Ronnie died and c) I can't recall the last time she had anything beyond a simple trim done. But she gritted her teeth through the initial scissor slice and now she has a shoulder length 'do that's really quite fetching.

Ash - Dillon has suddenly switching from "Sha" to "Ash." On Sunday, when we arrived to keep him so that his parents could celebrate their wedding anniversary, he ran to passenger side of the van calling "Ash! Ash!" And when I left for work yesterday morning he wouldn't give me a goodbye kiss because he wanted to play "cars." Mama said he stood at the door pitifully saying "Ash?" after I left.

Floor - For the first time in almost three decades, my mother is having the floors in our living room, dining room and den replaced with hardwoods. The crummy deteriorating carpet is being toted out and replaced with gleaming blond oak beams. Already today, the living room is woodsy. And she agreed to only put the furniture back in the room that she likes as opposed to just loading back in what's always been here.

Dancing - Last night, Mom and Dad were still at Justin and Eva's babysitting, so I had the house to myself. I watched She's the Man, and when the credits rolled to "Move Along" by the All-American Rejects, I gave into a fit of spontaneous dancing in the den. The cats looked perfectly scandalized. I thought it was magnificent.

Facing the Negativo

The last couple of weeks, I seem to have fallen prey to The Negativo. Suddenly, my first reaction to everything is negative. Anger, irritation, impatience, anxiety, dread. It's seething just underneath my skin, and it's provoked at the least infraction. And then it's like the worst version of me just jumps down the nearest person's throat. For example,

* The Dirty Film Boys are back, smelling up the common area. Every time I walk to the bathroom, the one closest to the door turns and stares at me. I am SORRY if the click-clack of my heels on the concrete annoys you, but get over it.

* On the way back from J. Island last week, my Garmin lost its ever-loving mind and directed me into the least populated corridors of the state. And when I turned around for the second time that day using the interstate median out of frustration, I promptly found myself sidelined by the state patrol. I had never ever cried on a cop until that day. "Happy belated birthday," he said. "I'm just going to give you warning."

* The Fam is experiencing too much togetherness. Patience is fraying; tempers are flaring. We're all slightly sick of the sight of each other but are quite at a loss how to avoid the suffocating conditions. Anna, though doing remarkably well, just isn't quite ready for abandonment and so we go and we sit together and we try not to kill each other.

* Work has me tense and knotted. I love my job, but right now, it just feels like everything is on level ten. There are too many balls in the air and I'm distracted...by...what, I don't know. By the shift in the office environs because of the Rockstar's impending departure. And the potential replacement's frightening Type-A over-achieving ways.

* I'm totally annoyed by people who do things better than me. How ridiculous is that? But it's like, I want the universe to give me a break, to give me some arena where I'm a winner free and clear. But instead, I'm on the insecurity train and riding shotgun.

* Another wave of grief seems to have washed over us all, and at times, it makes me resent every spark of happiness in the world. I want to tell other people not to smile. Because every time I think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, it fades into the distance, and all I can hear is the echo of our voices in a long dark cavern that never seems to end.

* I hate waiting. I'm so mad at waiting. Waiting for the next thing. Waiting for it to be the right time to buy a house. Waiting for the time when I'll feel like writing a book. Waiting for friends to blossom out of acquaintances. Waiting for a time when I don't stand in a room full of people and feel like the loneliest person in the world. Waiting for a time when my whole life isn't hijacked by mourning.

* I resent practicality. I want to throw caution to the wind and plan trips and be carefree. I have 80 percent of my vacation left. I have no idea when or how to take it. And sometimes, when I think about it, I just feel more tired trying to think of how to use it. I just sort of want it to go away.

* I worry about us all...all of us with our respective heart conditions. Anna's broken into a million tiny pieces. Dad's grown tired and stressed. Mom's heavy with her worry for us all. And mine empty and lonely and guilty and sad for feeling all that it feels.

Sucked into an Alternate Universe?

It is 9:36 p.m. I hear the vacuum running. I peer up the stairs to see Dad pushing said vacuum down the hall. I look in their bedroom, where Mom's brushing her teeth. "What-?" I begin.

She shrugs. "I have no clue," she says, all frothy.

Dad reaches the end of the hall, looks back at me. "What?"

"Well, it's just...it's...what inspired this?"

"I don't know. I just saw some stuff in the floor, I guess."

I resist the urge to say anything else. Particularly, "I have never seen you thus inspired in my life."

A New Year's anomaly, it would seem.

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve, and I hope wherever each of you is gathered with friends or family, that the holidays are merry and bright. For your Yuletide enjoyment, here are some photos I snapped of Dillon 'round the Christmas tree. And even though it's just me and Mom and Dad here this evening, we continued our age-old tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve. Since I got a Canon Eos Rebel XTi 10 Megapixel digital camera, you can expect to see a whole lot more of this sort of thing.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

We've Created a Monster

Tonight Dad met YouTube.

He literally just watched a kid play Pachelbel's canon on an electric guitar.

Yipe.

The Tipping Point

Several people asked me over the weekend how long I had been back in Georgia. The first time, I looked to the left, calculating in some empty space above my head. "Almost seven months," I said. And then I said it again and again. Oh, wow, I thought, almost seven months.

After a few times, it occurred to me that this is a tipping point. No matter what, this year will be one in which I spent the majority of the year in Georgia. It can no longer be a North Carolina year. As though some proverbial scoring has been tallied, I realized that I'm mostly Georgian now and less of a Carolinian. And I'm not sure how I feel about this shift in the balance of things...this dive toward more of one and less of the other. It's an odd feeling, particularly because this time last year, I was announcing The Big Move to my family. And that alternately feels like yesterday and years ago. It was a tipping point then, to move forward with something I had been thinking about, and, now, it is that uncertain feeling of the slightest movement working in concert with gravity to pull me in another direction.

Father Spice

Dad: "Ashley, are the Spice Girls still together?"

Me: "Well...actually, yes. They just reunited...why?"

Dad: "I just wondered."

Me: "Wow...questions I never thought my dad would ask me."

Dad: "Why not? That's who we're listening to."

Me: "No, Dad. This is the Dixie Chicks."

On Meeting People

I am starting to recognize a basic difference in the people I encounter as I go about creating some semblance of a life here. First, there are the Nice People. Nice People make up a great deal of the population surrounding you. Sort of like that old Seasame Street song - "These are the people in your neighborhood." You may encounter them daily - or just once. You can have a polite conversation with them. They may ask what you do, and you may feign interest in what they do. You may give them the basic vital statistics of your life (age, education, family, interests) and they will return the favor (marital status, children, pets, coffee drinker or not). Among these vital statistics, you may find commonalities. But they don't matter, because the Nice People will always be merely Nice People.

I went to lunch last week with one of the Nice People, which reminded me of the other part of the population. The small, rarefied part of the population that must be searched out, mined and cultivated. These are the Connection People. These are the people with whom the cross reference of vital statistics has no bearing. The commonalities are inconsequential. These people, the Connection People, are the people who make you feel alive when they talk about walking their dog. The Connection People create sparks and energy. They surge forward from the neutral beige of the Nice People with vivid, audacious color. Like magnets, you attract. You connect, lock together. Human Legos. (And no, I don't know those people, but I loved the photo so much I had to share - especially since it says "Cheetah '98" in the lower right corner - but I digress...).

Awash in a sea of Nice People, I am trying to sift through the sand and find those precious Connection People. In fits and starts, there are glimmers of Connection. But I need more. Not to mention that it makes me a bit sad to know that to most of the people I've met, I'm just another one of the Nice People, too.

About Me: NaBloPoMo Style

I'm taking my cue from Meg, who's the NaBloPoMo expert, that I should introduce myself on this first day of NaBloPoMo madness. Which is funny because I so recently posted about the "about me" phenomenon. So here's what I know:

I'm 28 years old. Six months ago, I quit my job, my apartment and my life and moved back home to Georgia after almost six years in North Carolina.

I live with my parents. This is both wonderful and maddening. They're lovely, but I'm an adult. I watch a lot of Antiques Roadshow.

I have a new job. I'm moving into my third month there, but it's still new. I don't know what I do, so I can't tell you that about me.

I have a cat. His name is Kudzu, and he gets me through.

Right now, I'm listening to a Scottish artist named Roddy Woomble. Seriously.

I love shoes, House, Harry Potter, dandelions, sushi, teacups and the smell of Sharpies.

I long to go to London. And the Greek Isles. But I don't have a passport.

I'm experiencing some mental turbulence that I'm trying to get sorted out, but it's a rocky road.

I almost always do what I'm told, what's expected of me...and then I complain about it here. I wish I was more adventurous, more daring, more rebellious, but the truth is, other than being crazy, I'm totally normal.

How to Feel Every Day

Mendacious requested a blog on blogging about feelings that seem to never change from day to day. I've given some thought to how one should address this matter, and I think a to-do list is in order. Perhaps it's best to catalog and check off the feelings for each day:

StopStopStop
Stop trying so hard to fit in, make a place, put down roots, shake the dust off your feet. Stop worrying about whether or not you think you can do your job, whether or not they think you can do your job, whether or not you really can do your job, whether or not you're going to get fired any moment from your job. Stop looking back and looking forward and looking back and looking forward - it won't help you make sense of what you're looking at now. StopStopStop or else you'll panic.

ThisTimeLastYear
This time last year I was sitting on my back porch reading a book from the library. This time last year I had a job I understood where I sat across the desk from STGD and laughed. This time last year I lived on Grace Street and walked the wide-board wooden floors and sat on the windowsill and dreamed. This time last year I stood on the Cape Fear River. This time last year people knew me. This time last year was another lifetime.

PeoplePeopleEverywhereAndNotaDroptoDrink
People from dawn til dusk, from waking to sleeping. Always someone else occupying the same space as me. Next to me in the office, in the same house. Crowded for breathing room and the thoughts cartwheeling in my head. The people are familiar and unfamiliar, and they are omnipresent, and they do not comfort. People everywhere and yet so lonesome am I.

OneIsTheLoneliestNumber
Try not to think about being alone. Just one. Just me, just me, just me. And I don't know anyone. And I don't know how to meet anyone. And I look jealously upon groups of peolple who appear to be friends. Who laugh with each other. Who talk and know each other's language. And I am just one. Just me.

WhereIsTheEnd?
To round out these feelings, to sort of end where you started and as a nice second to StopStopStop, there is the question of when this ends. How far ahead is the light at the end of the tunnel that you can't see? How long does it take to get to the destination that isn't in sight? How do you find the place on the map if you don't know where you're looking for? How do you tell yourself there will be an end when you really don't know?

Sister Mary Sunshine Gets Sucker Punched

Sometimes you just can't anymore. Can't act brave. Can't give them the stiff upper lip. Chin up, smile on. When they ask if you're worried, sometimes you can't find that place inside yourself that makes, "No, no, not at all" sound natural. And when they ask you the questions you don't know the answer to, it gets hard to say, "I don't know" onemoretime.

Sometimes you just don't believe your friends when they tell you how great you are. Or if you can really hang your hat on how infinitely talented you are in your parents' eyes. Sometimes you really don't know if you're going to be fine. You don't want to get past this, because you know after this, there is something else and something else. (At the same time, you know that it could be worse, but, another voice says, "This ain't so great either.")

And all those things that everyone says are out there? Isn't it possible that they don't exist? Sometimes, you have to wonder if this or that is out there. And if they aren't, what then? If you live in anticipation of fulfillment by what's out there, and it never comes, how do you reconcile?

On top of that, there's what's behind you. All that you gave up to be here that sometimes gets ignored. At times, when people ask you about that place, those people and events, you are reminded that no one really knows you. And you feel the sudden disconnect between then and now and you wish (maybe) that you hadn't done this to yourself.

And sometimes, there's the quiet to contend with, the solitude, the oneness. Sometimes you can't believe one more person is asking you when you're going to buy a house, get married, have a baby, write a book...become something else other than what you are. And sometimes, you think that it's just going to take one more time to put you over the edge. Just one more time and you aren't going to be able to say with a sweet, sweet smile, "In good time...when the time comes"...when, if, then, etc. etc. The time is going to come when it all gets to be more than you can bear and then...then it's going to get ugly. Because you can't be take-it-as-it-comes every second of your life. For every day that you get up and get brave and get through it, there's a day or maybe just an hour that you think, "I'm going to punch somebody in the face."

Leaving: Part Five - A Room of One's Own

One of the things I've missed most about being home is my space. Granted, there's no place like home, and in home, I've been reunited with the room I grew up in. I spent many an hour there feeling like it was the one place in the world that was really mine. It's undergone several incarnations, from the Holly Hobbie wallpaper to the sunflower explosion of the 90s to its more recent makeover to nice neutral tones. But upon my return, I've found it hard to fit back into it - quite literally, between the tiny bed and the tiny dimensions, I can't physically live there comfortably. Currently, my possessions are exploding from overnight bags and boxes and littering every room in the house - and especially the floor of my tiny room, which now has only sparse patches of carpet showing so that you can step carefully through the rubble.

Crammed into my parents' house, I'm like a jack-in-the-box, stuffed without grace into a tight space and ready to spring at any moment if only I get wound up enough. As the days and weeks have rolled past, it's been impossible not to long for my house on Grace Street. Sometimes at night or in a passing moment, I'll recall my favorite details about the old apartment - the wide-board wooden floors and the places where the edges were cracking and splintering; the design on the black tin cover on the fireplace; the eerie circles of light cast upward by the living room chandelier that came from New Orleans; the thick grey plaster walls that held stains from hurricanes and air conditioner leaks; and of course, the giant many-paned windows that stretched up the walls and filtered in the sunlight, the moonlight and the view of my tree.

But there's something beyond the love of the old house itself in my longing for it. There is the point of it being a place that was mine - searched for and discovered totally on my own. And I belonged there. And I had solitude there. Though the solitude may have been too much at times and sometimes I looked forward to breaking away from it, there's a bit of me that wishes for a long stretch of quiet evening with sole possession of the remote control or the stereo or just silence if that is what I wished. Then there is the need for all my things: ready access to all my books (even if just to take them out and open their covers and flip idly through the pages without ever reading them); all of my CDs including Ray LaMontagne, Scarlett's Walk, Under the Iron Sea, and the whole John Mayer catalog which are somewhere in the storage bin; my photographs and teacups and the print of The Pink House that I love so much. Without the trappings of me, I feel a little strung out, unable to feel like much is really mine.

Just having turned 28, I think that I should be expanding out into the world. Instead, I feel like I'm shrinking, back-peddling into a former self that can fit into this house. While on some levels, it's been wonderful to reconnect with my parents and share their roof again, there are moments that I feel absolutely monstrous, like I'm going to Hulk-out and lose my mind. After so many years of relying on and only having to answer to me, myself and I, constant companionship can be stifling. Perhaps that's why I'm up past midnight most nights, relishing the quiet and the stillness. When, if I just close my eyes, I can pretend that when I open them, there will be the soft mellow glow of the downtown streetlights through the window casting shadows along the walls, all the way up to the cavernous ceiling while silence fills a space that is mine. All mine.

The Girl Who Lived

"You can't help but wish that maybe you aren't really all Muggle -- non-magic folk -- but have some bit of wizard blood in your veins that would allow you the chance to visit Hogwarts....and so I've had my nose pressed into the pages of the first four books--rather lengthy, they all are. I've been obsessed with Harry, because in Harry's world, there is no graduate school. A fire-breathing dragon or a life-ending curse, but nothing as bad as moving to the next state."
-- Journal dated August 8, 2001, three weeks before relocating to N.C.

I've just finished rereading Goblet of Fire for the I-don't-know-how-many-times, and I can't help but think of the first time I read Harry Potter. It was six years ago to the summer that Niki convinced me that I had to read Socerer's Stone. I remember reading that first chapter with Dumbledore and the Put-Outer and the flying motorcycle and thinking, "What is this?" I don't recall exactly the point at which I got hooked, but once I was hooked, I was all the way hooked.

It was a tough summer. I'd just graduated from college, and on my graduation day, I had no plans. No job. No apartment. I was waiting to hear from UNC Wilmywood to see if a spot had come open in its MFA program. And on top of that, I decided not to get a job that summer, owing to the fact that Mom needed my help since Anna and Justin decided to get married less than 30 days apart. Did I mention that my boyfriend at the time was in D.C. doing an internship?

Everything was changing, my whole world upended and the future totally uncertain. I was lonely and worried. And I was suffering the fate of the youngest child, which is that everyone else goes on to the next stage of life without you. I suddenly felt like the classic which-one-of-these-doesn't-belong?

But in the midst of it all, I found Harry Potter, who was suffering a bit himself in a world so far removed from my own that I could almost forget what was going on here. I was insatiable; I carried the books with me everywhere. Car trips, waiting rooms, dress fittings, hotel rooms. At 2 in the morning, I sat in the recliner in the den deep into the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire, and was more than a little spooked by the dark yard outside the sliding glass door. Upon finishing, it took me a bit to calm down enough to brave walking past the big glass door and go to bed. I may have finished the book, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. But it was okay that the next book wasn't around yet - it was time for me to go to North Carolina.

It was two years after that when Order of the Phoenix hit the stands, and I made myself nearly sick and hysterical reading that giant tome for such a stretch. And the death in that one hit me particularly hard, and I was inconsolable for days. Two years after that came Half-Blood Prince, whose release caused an absolute temper-tantrum when it wasn't delivered as expected. But that was nothing compared to the quivering mass I was after the outcome of the book.

And now it's coming down to the wire. Less than 25 days before all will be revealed in Deathly Hallows, Potter's last stop. I'm on schedule to plow through OOTP and HBP before the big day gets here. Today, I read an article with a massive spoiler, a possibility that I hadn't considered, and it was the first time during all my conjecturing that it really hit me that, whatever the outcome, this is it. Whatever's on those final pages, whether it's Harry's death or happily-ever-after or a mysterious sentence ending in "scar," it's the end of the story and we'll all have to live with whatever ending Rowling penned.

I can't help but recognize that there are eerie parallels between reading those first pages of Sorcer's Stone and now anticipating Deathly Hallows: the waiting, the need to escape reality, this strange station between one chapter of life and the next (a Platform 9 3/4 time in life, if you will). There are similar trappings - temporarily living at home, my stuff scattered everywhere, and me not really belonging anywhere. And more than once in the last couple of weeks, I've thrown up my hands at the job search and buried myself in Potterdom just like I did way back when, only then I was trying to avoid registering for classes and folding wedding programs.

Me and Harry have been through a lot together. (Like the development of my slightly unhealthy obsession. ) The intervening years have been as much an adventure for me as him. And whether or not he lives or dies, his adventure is coming to an end. But me? I'll get to be the girl who lived. For me, there will be another chapter.

Out There (or The Waiting Place)

As I've run into old friends and acquaintances (or their parents) and I relay the circumstances of this place in my life, I hear the following: "Don't you worry. (Fill in the blank) is out there for you. Just you wait and see."

And it's one of those things that people dash off, a ready-made phrase selected as easily as a cliche, a proverb, a line of Shakespeare. It's just what you say in these conversations. I'm not ungrateful for it. It is said in such a manner as to suggest that people aren't worried for me, that, in their minds, the future holds good things for me. It is a sort of glimmer of hope when they say these things and reminds me that this place isn't forever.

As for this place, I'm torn between two schools of thought about it. One stems from this kind of remark - this place is not forever and there is a next station on this train ride of life, and when I get there, I will laugh about my panic/insecurity/overt worrying. It is the thought that emphasizes that this is temporary, to be endured and to test patience. It is the place between here and there - a life layover. And like all layovers, I simply must make the best of it.

And the other school of thought comes from another place that tells me to be patient and enjoy. For me, it's swimming-upstream, beat against the current, a thought against the status quo to stop trying to "get past" this time and accept it. This voice is very, very quiet, because I'm not much given over to things like relaxing into a life without structure, without habits and plans and knowing.

Along with this school of thought comes the question, is there a reason I'm stuck here for longer than I anticipated? Maybe "out there" is just not out there yet, and so I'm here waiting for it to fall cosmically in line. And beyond that, maybe while I'm here, I'm not supposed to see the time as wasted on waiting. Instead of ticking off the time like so much sand through the hourglass, maybe I'm actually supposed to be doing something with this time - learning those things I need to know from Mom, like how to cook eggplant. Or maybe it's time to pick up with my writing. Or photography. Or something...something besides adding up the hours and days and weeks like a bean counter.

And so it's a fight to the death between these two schools of thought, hovering around me like the proverbial devil and angel. But in this case, it's more like a fight between Ferris Bueller and Cameron. And, like in most situations, I think the key is balance - pursuing the job search with a reasonable amount of intensity but not letting myself forget that I exist right now. Carpe diem.

If I Can't Laugh at Myself...

From Indexed:

Drought

Since I've been here, we haven't had a rainy day. Most of the state is suffering from extreme drought conditions. Still, humid afternoons that parch the grass, burning it away bit by bit to strew lawns with dirt patches (despite some people's attempts to surreptitiously water it against the enforced watering bans). The heat shimmers up from the pavement in such waves that it gives the illusion of water trickling down. The water is receding from the muddy banks of the river, the topmost levels now drying and cracking.

Without storm clouds rolling in along the line of a weather front, the sky seems eerily unchanging. A cruel almost metallic blue stretching from horizon to horizon with barely a wisp of white, reflecting sunlight with unbearable clarity. The air doesn't move but settles around you wherever you linger too long like a cloak. The ground is hot and arid, and everywhere you look, you can see the red clay Georgia is famous for pushing through the green or rising up in rusty clouds.

Tomorrow's the first day of summer, and with it will come heat so oppressive, it will steal your breath the moment you walk out the door. It's the kind of weather that brings on lethargy, a sting of heat so intense that it stifles energy. It presses you down, keeps you in. Smothers the euphoria that comes from ozone-rich air, dewy grass, cool darkness. It's the kind of weather made for waiting. It's weather for the unmoving and unchanging. For a time in life that seems to be standing still and timeless. For stretching out under the unforgiving sun in its blazing blue sky, feeling it burn red against your eyelids, feeling its heat fill your lungs, feeling it set fire to every pore on your body and wondering if it will ever rain.

Miscellany

* I don't know where I picked it up or why, but "clearly" is my new word of choice. I say it about 784 times a day. Clearly, this is a problem.

* I woke up this morning with two things in mind: popcorn and "Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw. I don't know why I was thinking about either of them. (Side note: That song came the summer before 8th grade. And my friend Lizzy bought the tape single so we could listen to it out at her pool. That was the same summer Justin and I watched a lot of country music videos on the local channel WNGM 34. We really liked "Fancy.")

* I've started to use my cell phone as a sort of flashlight at night when I'm headed to bed so I don't have to turn on lights and potentially wake my parents. It makes me feel a little like MacGyver.

* I had a dream that one of the agencies whose site I had looked at called and offered me a job. I immediately sent them a resume this morning.