It started to snow today. Tiny, cold white dots chased me to the cafe on break in between court sessions today. I'm drinking a 1.18 cup of tea, pinching every penny eating a sandwich I made at home and avoiding driving as much as I can. Sadly, I must be on several different ends of town today. Long day. A third of it is done. A man is playing the guitar behind me - definitely talented - not obtrusive or too loud but warm and welcome. I am willing the snow to signal the start of new days. Days that are not marked by wanting or worry but frugality and peace. I must start acting like an adult. I will get a second job, start school in the fall instead of the spring so that I may have both feet firmly on the ground before I risk failing in school. I need to do well so that I may someday have a career and not a job. A life instead of an existence. Help me Lord, help me be better, keep up and stay ahead. Help me Lord to let the right people in.

I don't want to be afraid of my sister anymore. Don't let me hate her.

screw it

I'm so tired and so scared and so angry I just want to curl up in a ball and die. That's all I want. Leave me alone, forget I exist and don't ask me for help or if I'm ok or what's wrong. Everything's wrong. Go away.

lady

getting out of the car to pick me up. holding doors. paying. polite. telling me I look pretty tonight. didn't even make a move - just a hug. all very good things. exactly what girls should hear on dates...if that was in fact what it was...I can't be sure because that's not how it usually is. Movies and days of yore state that's what dates are...but do they still really exist?

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

what a week. ups, downs, highs, lows, hurt feelings, hours of laughter, liquor, turkey and cheesecake. things I'd like to forget and things I will always remember. Forever taken advantage of and always cared for. Someday, there will be much too much to be thankful for. As of now, I can only appreciate the basics. I'm ready to sleep but I'll leave a bit of a poem to ponder while I do...

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot?
The world forgetting , by the world forgot.
Eternal sun-shine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
'Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep';
Desires compos'd, affections ever even,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring Angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins Hymenaeals sing;
For her th'unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of Seraphs shed divine perfumes;
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
-Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard" 1716

stupid

I hate today.

to do

• clean my apartment
• shave
• cry
• pay bills
• look for a job
• take care of everything
• mingle
• pray
• lose my mind
• return videos
• brush my teeth
• change the oil in my car
• pay library fines
• spend more time with grandparents
• cry some more
  

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Sitting in Borders, drinking Peppermint Trio, reading magazines and listening to early Christmas music - it's NOVEMBER but I can't deny I love it. I don't want to go to work tonight. Had another impressive tiff with the infamous frenemy at work - peaks and valleys define our working relationship - I fear we have plummeted into a very deep valley...However, it is the Friday night before a home ND game which means we should be decently busy. Hope so, bills are starting to pile up. Just need to make it through November. That has become a mantra in sis and my household: "Just make it through _______" (insert appropriate month here) both of us assuming the next month will be easier, the income greater, the amounts going out smaller. However, I like to believe it makes us stronger and more resilient to whatever it is we face. We're "scrappy". Thanks mom and dad.
Alright, have many things to be done - even sitting here in Borders, tasks can and need to be completed:

finish grad school essay
write out Thanksgiving grocery list
find directions to Jess's
balance checkbook
...I'm dreaming of a white Christmas/just like the one's I used to know/Where the tree tops glisten and children listen/to hear sleighbells in the snow...

Oh procrastination

I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO WORK!!! working with all boys...no fun at all. must go get ready instead on tinkering with blogger! so fun though - must do more tonight!!! I love this scene, especially the sweater-ed dog.
xx
V

Where the Wild Things Are

No, I didn't see the movie yet and that is not what this post is about...I sit here in Saint Mary's library stealing their internet and sense of belonging to an academic world. I've decided to stop worrying about things. I want to fill my life with beauty and simple little moments of happiness. Rent will be paid. I will find a career someday. I will not always be single (and if I am, I will make the most of it - I will live like those amazing independent women that take trips to France and do whatever they want because they are only concerned with how their trip turns out). I will leave something meaningful behind in this world. I don't know how any of these things will be done, but they will. God's got me. He knows what's up. I just have to keep moving, keep breathing, keep working and keep taking these days; sitting by a window, looking at the bleak sky reminded of days in England or Maine in October. I have entered a place where wild things can happen. I am working right now to pay off debt and once that's done I can save for whatever may come next. I would love to see Venice or Sierra Leonne (sp?). I would love to buy a house somewhere and completely gut it to its frame and start over. I would love to take two weeks and do nothing but cook dinner, read books, and sit in a hammock and watch the sun set. We'll see. I may move to Oxford to get my Ph.D. in 2-3 years instead of 5-6 here in the states. I may open an inn or a bookstore and settle down in a tiny hamlet making enough to live happily. I may work at a restaurant for the rest of my life (God I hope not...). Magical things can happen, here's to opening my eyes.

Headache

Observed court, had lunch, may become admin assistant for new program through YWCA, consumed a billion sickly sweet calories and am doing everything I can to put off writing my essay for grad school applications (including this blog). I wish I were one of those people that led such fascinating lives that my blog was followed...I wish I had a life that anyone cared to follow. Yes, a silly boy here and there, my mom and dad, etc etc to the assumed characters interested, but no one that would care otherwise. AND it's gross out. Cold and windy and gray. I don't like this kind of fall/winter. I prefer all snow or the 60 degree November days we've been having recently. I hope I'm doing the right thing. I hope that by deciding to go to IUSB I'm not selling myself short, that I'm not taking the easy way out, that I'm doing less than I'm capable of. Although, I tried the "higher-ranked school" (Saint Mary's - sullied sister of Notre Dame) and got a terrible education but when I returned to GV I learned SO much more. It's the show, the name and the prestige that people recognize and are in awe of. I feel like I talk myself up to people and they expect me to do better and greater things (aka go to an ivy league, become a lawyer, lose weight and be healthy, form functional relationships with the opposite sex) but in reality I'm no more than ordinary, smart, yes, but I have no drive to go too far out of my comfort zone. Maybe it's the fear of failure or rejection or maybe the stories are just so much better than reality. I should be more honest, more frank. Such twittering and rambling does me no good expect to vent and procrasinate. I should write a book of procrastinations - it would be a bestseller I'm sure. Dinner with ladies tonight, should figure out thanksgiving as well since sis and I are hosting the event. Oh dear.

writing

I love to write. Everything about it. You can create and transmit the ideas in your head and heart onto paper (or computer screen) and erase as easily as they flowed out. It is what sets us apart, humans. we have multiple modes of communication and writing can be just for you or for thousands. If given the chance of an ideal career, I would be an author. I would want to be a great author though. Someone people will remember and study forever. I would never want to end up half-off or used as a door jam. Sure, I know that people use Dickens for door jams somewhere in the world but I would like to think they don't and wouldn't with one of my books.

I hope grad school is where I should be.