Thursday Miscellany

* When I'm in the shower in the morning debating what to wear, I imagine my clothing options just like Cher's computer program in Clueless, sliding tops and bottoms back and forth for consideration in my mind.

* My mom has new glasses. This may explain why she purchased prune-flavored yogurt for me instead of mixed berry.

* Rumor has it that Johnny Depp is signing on to play The Riddler in the next installment of Batman. Oh please, oh please say it's true.

* NY Fashion Week purportedly featured models that demonstrated that "thin isn't so in" - several size 2s and 4s worked the runway this year. So go ahead and eat that ice cream, ladies.

* I sort of love my hairdryer. Like, it's been with me through a lot. It comforts me to count on it every morning.

* I'm going on a date tomorrow. A third date, actually.

* In one month? NEW Keane AND Ray LaMontagne. Perfect Symmetry and Gossip in the Grain drop Oct. 14.

* I can't believe Kenley got through with that abhorrent dress last night on ProRun. Although, Blayne's was an atrocity. I'm with Heidi, "Ooooh, that's bad."

* The debut of Fringe has me jonesing to pick up the Dawson's Creek series finale and watch it will eating a whole cookie cake by myself. I heart Pacey.

Threesdays: Music News that Makes Me Tingle

Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends - the announced title of the new album due out this year

Keane - At work on their as-yet unnamed album due out September 2008. The band is posting pictures from the studio as their site's landing page. (Today's is very cool...)

Ray LaMontagne - Site says "Details about the new record coming soon."

Yeeeee!

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.

Amalgamation (uh-mal-gah-MAY-shun)

amalgamation (noun) - a combination or blend of diverse things, sometimes companies or metals; an alchemist's word...the number of things running through my head that are in no way related in reality but somehow encompass The Brain at the moment



Road
So many hours in the car between here and Wilmywood, here and Atlanta, just me and the Rav and the pavement. And for the first time in a long time, the car is meaningful - mine, that I'm paying for, that feels like me the way my first car (92 baby blue Honda Accord with pop-up lights) felt. Time passes in the car with me in hazy, unfocused autopilot, driving the drive I know well. Or lost in some imagined scenario: job interview, apartment hunting, going to London, winning backstage passes to John Mayer. Or in the music. Whatever I'm listening to, so into every note and word and feeling it and singing it and knowing it. Most of my CDs went into storage for lack of a place to put them. I am thankful for Keane and The Fray and Jeff Buckley and the words that I sing, that run through my mind long after, that tell me someone else has been in this place before.

Moments
Teetering on the edge of the other side of the canyon, casting a caustic glance at where I came from, I crave moments that affirm that it's good that I made the jump. Sometimes they come in the everyday - deciding which facial scrub to buy at Wal-Mart with Mom, uncapping and sniffing, reading the backs and pretending we have any idea what makes one better than the other. Going to the quilt shop, touching the fabrics, admiring the patterns and color pallettes, planning to make a skirt or a shirt while I'm home. Listening to the rain drip off the edge of the house and splatter on the front porch while reading.

And then there are the moments I know I am needed or wanted. When Eva tells me that she is so glad that I'm home, how badly she's missed me. How they all held their breath this weekend fearing I would say I had made a mistake. (The unspoken reality that I held my breath, too.) The observations of other people become surprising. The Boss asking, "Are you happy? Because you seem to be really happy." And it seems too long since someone has made that comment.

Observations
This odd quality in me rising to the top again after hibernating for some time. I open my eyes to what's just there and enjoy it. I take it in, when others miss it, overlook it. A red-headed woodpecker in the front yard. The vibrant green color of the choleas we planted two weeks ago. Riding with the windows down. That a product called "Fluff" in a jar exists.

Future
Growing less distant and more real with each passing day. The realization that I've got to move forward is dawning, but less disturbing. This respite in the safety net of home has given me a sense of peace. The knowledge that family and friends are here to rally behind me, to help me make the next leap, make it less scary. The first time, I walked the wire alone. But this time, there will be hands to keep me steady, push me forward.

Taking the Long Way (or The UnPlan Plan)

Two questions most asked since my departure from Wilmywood:

1) Are you enjoying having some time off from work?
2) Have you found a job yet?

Please don't think these questions are mutually exclusive. I'm often asked them back to back.

Here's the thing: I have followed the plan to the nth letter since I was 12 years old. I choose 12, because that's when I decided to go to Berry. And major in Communication. When I was 14, I started high school on the college prep track. I joined clubs. I did extracurricular activities. When I was 15, I took the PSAT. When I was 16, I took the SAT. Took it again when I was 17 and took the ACT, too - just for good measure. At 17, I was accepted to Berry and awarded a scholarship. At 18, I went to college.

In those four years of college, I stayed in the major I declared as a 12-year-old, and added three minors to it. I got a second scholarship in theatre. I worked at Oak Hill and was made supervisor. I applied to grad school. I did an internship. I graduated and went to Wilmywood. I got a job. At 24, I earned my MFA. And I stayed in my job, working full-time.

I have followed The Plan so very carefully. And now, for a few weeks of my life since I was 12, I don't have a plan. And it's a national emergency. I know it's what people think to ask, but I wish they wouldn't ask it like they're panicked for me. Like the time is ticking and the bank account is growing smaller.

There's a plan for everything. Your cell phone. Your retirement. The possibility that your workplace comes under a terrorist attack. Perhaps it's time to be liberated from The Plan.

On the way home today, I wasn't paying attention and missed the interstate I was supposed to take and ended up taking another way home. A longer way that I probably haven't driven since college. I missed a bypass later and ended up driving through a quaint little downtown. A drive that should've taken me an hour and a half tops, crested to just over two hours. But you know what? It was okay.

Sometimes, you have to throw the map out the window. Sometimes you have to get lost. Sometimes you just have to keep driving even though you don't know where you're going. Sometimes, the future - that far off destination- is too far away. Sometimes, right now, with the windows down and Keane turned up, is enough. It's enough.

Here's to the UnPlan Plan.

Cinco de Grammy

Grammy nominations were announced today, and even though no one seems to be counting him among the top nominations, John Mayer garnered five nods for his work in the past year. He's up for the following

* Album of the Year - Continuum
* Best Male Pop Vocal - "Waiting on the World to Change"
* Best Pop Vocal Album - Continuum
* Best Solo Rock Performance - "Route 66" (featured in Cars)
* Best Rock Album - Try!

Also getting a handful of nods was Justin Timberlake. Unfortunately, none of them were for Best Clean-the-House Album. Other great bands that got a nomination or two were Keane, Coldplay and Sarah McLachlan for Wintersong. You can check out the full list of nominee here. Come February 11, I'll be hoping to see John taking home some trophies - and looking less like Marc Anthony.