Follow my rules.

Why the befuddlement over grammar? I concede that the rules shy away from being steadfast and have exceptions, but that does not warrant the blunders that abound in written English. For this fact, here are my (candid) thoughts on the most common missteps:

Apostrophes:
1) Signifying plurals: DO NOT USE AN APOSTROPHE TO SIGNIFY A PLURAL. Example: never say "These pickle's are really tasty." This just makes me want to ask you what the pickles own that are so tasty. The one exception to this rule I will accept is using an apostrophe to separate the digital portion of a decade from the "s" at the end. Example: "Excuse me sir, but were you alive during the 70's?" This prevents (though is not necessary due to contextual clues) one from assuming that the pronunciation is "seven zero ess," as in the specific part number for some gadget. I accept this exception only because English is an absurd language.
2) Signifying possessives: Pronouns (her, it, his, etc.) do not use apostrophes. You would never say "That book is her's." Nouns (dog, cat, asparagus) use apostrophes; "This is Michael's mounted deer head," or "That is the dog's bone." Those are appropriate uses of apostrophes to signify ownership. "It's" means it is, while "Its" means that "it" owns the object of the sentence.
3) Plural Possessives: This one is pretty simple, once you know the rule. With the exception of pronouns, which we've already been over, there is only one way (that I know of) to signify plural possessives. Instead of the apostrophe being between the subject and the "s," simply put it at the end of the whole word. Example: a bowl belonging to one dog is "The dog's bowl," whereas a bowl belonging to multiple dogs is "The dogs' bowl." You don't say "theirs'" however, because apostrophes aren't used to signify ownership with pronouns.

Their, There, They're/Your, You're:
1) They're not interchangeable. Deal with it.

I, Me, Him, He:
1) Mine vs. My in conjunction with a second-person pronoun: this is a rule that there is almost universal confusion over. How do I say that the book belongs to both my brother and me? Or is it my brother and I? The answer is extremely simple once we break down the sentence and put it back together piece by piece. First off, would you say that it is "My book" or "Mine book"? Obviously the first of these options is correct, so now we move on to the second-person pronoun. The only logical choice is that it is "His book", thus the second part of the sentence practically writes itself. Putting the two sections together, we get "It is his and my book." It may not sound perfect and pretty-smooth, but it's right. Alternately, if we want to put the book in the first part of the sentence, we would say "The book is mine and his" because if the first-person was the only object in the sentence, we would say "The book is mine." It's all about treating each pronoun as though it's in the sentence alone, then putting the two together to form one cohesive sentence.
2) I vs. Me: The same process from the possessive sentences we just went over applies to this idea. Most people I've encountered have been poorly taught to believe that whenever you are talking about yourself and another using pronouns, the personal pronoun must always be "I." If we break down a few sentences using the same process for the possessives, however, we see that this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. For example, if I want to say that I went to Subway, and so did my roommate, I would say "She and I went to Subway" because separately the two sentences would be "She went to Subway" and "I went to Subway." But if I want to say my mother gave a gift to both my brother and me, I would say "My mother gave a gift to him and me" because separately the two sentences would be "My mother gave a gift to him" and "My mother gave a gift to me."

Hence:
Oh my Lord few things irritate me more that the misuse of the word "hence." Hence takes the place of "consequentially..." not "that is." Don't ever let me hear you saying "I ran out of milk, hence why I went to Wal Mart." I will hate you. "I ran out of milk, hence I went to Wal Mart," or "I ran out of milk, hence my trip to Wal Mart" are appropriate. It's a vaguely ruled word that is nearly impossible to explain to someone who doesn't understand it. If you don't get it, don't use it. It's easier to respect a person who knows their vocabulary and doesn't try to over step its bounds than it is to respect a person who picks up on words from another's vocabulary without fully grasping the meaning and proper usage.

Can anyone explain the "who" vs. "whom" rule to me? I knew for about 3 months my senior year of high school, but it completely escapes me now.

Also, I couldn't decide where to put the period after a single word in quotation marks, so I just put it within. It looks better to have the period outside the quotations in these instances, but I either never learned the corresponding rule or have forgotten it.

More to come later; I'm all grammared out. (a rant on semicolons, perhaps?)

Wine in hand

Sitting in the living room, nothing but the Christmas tree and wood stove for light. Sharing a glass of wine with my mother and brother, watching the dog try in vain to eat the firewood.
It's sub-zero outside; we're losing snow, sublimation. Moose are out there somewhere, crunching their way through the frozen forests.
Dinner is starting to smell like food - herbs and frozen meat turning into a meal in the oven.
This is home; a brief respite from the vigors of reality. Our own little cocoon in the blistery world.

"It's got wings! It's got wings!"

Around 11:30 last night I was lying in bed reading Water for Elephants (fan-frickin'-tastic), when my roommate Kori knocked timidly on my door.
"Katelin? Are you awake?"
"Yeah, I'm just reading, what's up?"
She opens the door and comes in my room, on the verge of tears.
"There's something really big in my room. Inca's playing with it."
"How big is big?" I ask, assuming it's the oft-present cricket or spider.
She wordlessly holds up her hands, indicating it's about the size of a tennis ball. I immediately start to freak out a little as I imagine the behemoth of a spider I'm about to lay waste to. As I walk towards Kori's room, I hear the jingle of Inca's bell as she bounces about, and an off-putting chirping noise I can't quite place. I open the door while Kori waits in the kitchen, and with the lights off see what looks like a frog repeatedly jumping into the mirrored closet door.
"It's just a frog Kori, calm down!"
I switch on the light and take one step into the room before I realize "It's got wings! It's got wings!"
Before I've finished with even two syllables, I've scurried to the kitchen and am huddling bravely with Kori in the kitchen. Kori jumps on the phone while I call on every bit of manliness in my body and go back into the room to pull Inca away from the bat.
We quarantine Inca in the bathroom (rabies, you know) and 30 minutes later Jim arrives, bat-catching towel in hand. He goes into the room, and in the process of his search for the bat we hear all sorts of unsettling banging going on in the room. After about 10 minutes, Jim comes out of the room and declares that he can't find the bat, so he asks that we come in and double check the places he's looked so we can be confident it's not there. At this point we're utterly flabbergasted; we both saw the bat, and there are no holes in the walls/ceiling through which it could have escaped.
Since I was the one brave enough to aid in the search, I go into Kori's room and together Jim and I shake out every piece of clothing in the closet while Kori slowly musters the courage to enter the room. After about 45 seconds in the room, Kori bolts out screaming "It's in the red bucket, it's in the red bucket!" There is, of course, no red bucket in Kori's room. It takes us a few confused seconds to realize that she was referring instead to the red bag filled with CDs, which Jim promptly throws the bat towel on and takes outside. With the help of a few of the CD cases he launches the bat into the back yard. After a few minutes of frantic thrashing about in the grass, the bat flies off into the black oblivion that is our scary-as-hell alley (though Kori didn't believe me that it was gone).

And thus concludes my first bat encounter.

Real quick:

1) I spent the better part of the day about 4 seconds behind the rest of the world. Reason? I took some Dayquil this morning and found out that it makes me more than a little loopy. While I was in Spanish, my professor asked me what I used to do when I was little, and it took me at least 30 seconds to comprehend what she was asking me, come up with an answer in English, and translate it to Spanish. The best I could come up with was that I played outside with my brother and that there weren't any parks nearby. Awesome. So conversational. Things got even more interesting when I was walking home from class and had to cross Kentucky and Tennessee. I never wait for the walking man (because really, why?). But this morning by the time the thought process telling me it was safe to cross the street had come to fruition, it was in fact no longer safe to be in the middle of the road. Too cool.
2) The other day (November 11th, if you must know) I was dancing around the kitchen with a pint of ice cream (like I do) singing along to Kori's Shit List (all the best [worst] music from middle school and beyond) when I realized that it was the 4 year anniversary of Cody dying. So naturally, I admonished myself for being happy and went into the living room to denature my brain with mindless television (thank you, cable!). And now, looking back on it, that was stupid. No better word for it than that. Just because she's gone doesn't mean I get to hold myself back from experiencing what she never gets to.
3) I just got off the phone with Craig, one of the only non-family members I've known my whole life. Just when I thought we'd grown apart to the point of never being able to reconnect, we go and have an hour-long conversation with almost no awkward pauses. It was really great talking to him, especially now that we're both at points in our lives where we're pursuing our dreams and turning into real people. Let's all give friendship one big hurrah, shall we?
4) I got a tattoo. I've kind of been letting people discover it naturally, but the only people I know who read this already know about it (sorry, Mom). It's a musical symbol, a fermata. Fermatas are placed over notes when the length of the note is up to the conductor's discretion (usually at the end of pieces). Basically, it means that things only have to last as long as I want them to. I'm not living by anyone else's agenda. Lame, but whatever.

I went on a domestic rampage today.

It all started with my bedroom (which, let's be honest, was a disaster 2 weeks ago - by the time I got to it today it was down right post-apocalyptic). After cleaning to the point where I could cross it without stepping on anything and I could almost make out the pattern on my rug, I finally started nesting. My closet doors are two massive mirrors on rollers, so I set about covering those up first off (what girl wants to wake up to a wall of mirrors every morning?). One side was already half blocked by a bookshelf, which stands as a bleak tribute to my poor reading habits of late, i.e. I haven't been doing enough of it. Thanks to the handy, though depressing, bookshelf I had just one door-sized mirror to cover. For this task I called on my Shit Box, which contains sundry treasures and pictures spanning the last 10 or so years of my life. I put in everything from a picture of my dad and I in front of Graceland to my ticket to The Star Trek Experience in Vegas. I have to mention, for obvious reasons, that there are also a number of clippings from the basketball team's road to the National Championship tacked up there for good measure. After all that and despite the pile of clothes on my bed approximating the size of a small sedan, I called my room clean enough for the day.
My next target was the kitchen. I dirtied it up real good. I've been wanting to make a big ol' batch of pozole for months, and when I found hominy in the grocery store I knew it was destiny. So I snatched up 5 cans, called my dad (the family's pozole connoisseur), gathered the rest of the ingredients (or so I thought) and headed home. Of course as soon as I got home I realized I'd forgotten the chicken broth, one of the three main components of the soup. I sped back to the grocery store and walked past the broths 3 times before I finally broke down and asked an employee to point me in the right direction. A few minutes later I arrived home, broth in hand, and began assembling my foodstuffs. The rest of the pozole incident was fairly uneventful, since all it involved was some chopping, trimming, grating, browning, and boiling. The highlight of the whole process was Kori telling me "It's not horrible." Point - Katelin!

Another goal of mine was baking a pie. It's been on my list for months, but I always found a way of putting it off. I eventually decided that if I was going to play house for a day I may as well go all out 50's style (sans sun dress and apron). After 3 attempts and a counter full of dishes, I finally mastered the crust, lattice and all. Eight peeled, cored, and sliced apples later my pie was assembled and baking while was falling asleep in the living room. Since I was afraid I would fall asleep and set fire to the house, I took the pie out ten minutes early and passed out. So the apples were still a bit under-cooked... no big deal.

I'm done.

I don't want to be in school anymore. I know it makes me a more well-rounded individual and that I can't get a decent job in this economy without an education. Yadda yadda yadda. I just don't have the passion; I see people all around me who genuinely love what they're doing. They're on a well-defined path to a future career sure to yield contentedness (and a sweet paycheck, for the lucky ones). I've been a go-with-the-flow type gal all my life, but I've hit a brick wall. Forward doesn't seem like an option anymore. I want to go off and find my own little nook in the world where I can curl up with a cup of tea and a book. I want to do my learning (and earning) on my own terms. But most of all, I want my sentence here to be over; I'm done being judged by such subjective, meaningless standards. So I can't adjust a supply or demand curve to make up for inflation as well as I can whip up a creme brulee. So what?
I want to tell people's stories. I want to introduce the world to real, flawed people. I want them to see themselves in my words, and I want them to be better for reading them.

Straight A's, perfect attendance, a flawless transcript -- If that's what it means to be successful, then I can't be successful according to your terms.

Matt Versus

Premise: in an attempt to save lil' kids from their own stupidity, a children's television show pitting Matt against the various hazards in the world was developed. The following are plot ideas for said show:
Matt versus Geese
Matt versus Crack-Addicted 13-Year-Olds
Matt versus Gravity
Matt versus Inertia
Matt versus Spy Vs. Spy
Matt versus The Elements (as in weather, not those in the periodic table)
Matt versus Traffic
Matt versus Fish
Matt versus Grizzly (on land)
Matt versus Grizzly (salmon-style)
Matt versus Dumpster Divers
Matt versus Trans-gendered Vegas Hookers
Matt versus The Mob
Matt versus Irony

My beef.

I'm sick and tired of hearing conservationists claim that drilling for oil in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) will destroy the tundra and kill off the animals. First off, people who camplaign (campaign+complain) so heavily to protect this environment need to educate themselves on exactly what it is they're so vehemently trying to save. We're not dealing with some lush Alaskan wilderness from a National Geographic magazine. No, my friends, we're dealing with an Arctic desert which is frozen solid for about 9 months of the year. I don't mean to downplay the importance of this place, nor do I condone it's destruction. Which brings me to my second point.
As much as uninformed individuals claim drilling operations destroy the environments in which they take place, this simply is not the case. I've seen first-hand the extent to which companies go to in order to ensure the well-being of the environment. It is vital to the life cycle of tundra that the permafrost below it remain frozen year-round. As a result, all facilities (which produce a tremendous amount of heat during their operations) are on raised gravel pads, raising them 4-6 feet off the tundra. In addition, the facility buildings themselves are on stilts to minimize the heat transferred to the tundra. In addition to shielding the tundra from heat, the pads also function to provide a catch-all for spills and driving surfaces for vehicles. No vehicle, under any circumstances, is allowed to drive on the tundra. The pipelines criss-crossing across the land are also a significant source of heat, so to protect the fragile plant-life all support beams are heavily insulated.
Case number two against drilling operations: it kills off wildlife. Untrue. The Prudhoe Bay drilling sites are directly in the path of caribou migrations, but instead of impeding their progress, the drill sites draw the caribou in droves. The pads and roads give the creatures sanctuary from the clouds of mosquitoes, and the shade provided under the facilities provides a reprieve from the sweltering 70-degree days (note: temperatures that high cause facilities to shut down; they function better during sub-zero winter days). All employees, save for the few trained bear-hazers, are prohibited from approaching or harassing wildlife. Because of this rule, I found myself stuck in a drill site Control Room for nearly an hour when the pad was invaded by a herd. As for bears, they're doing just fine in the presence of slopers. There are more bears killed by humans, and vice versa, every year in Anchorage than there are in Prudhoe. Humans and bears are in more danger from each other in my parents' neighborhood than they would be in ANWR.
As for litter, they're pretty good about that up there, too. I guarantee that if one was to walk down a street in the Student Ghetto of Lawrence, they would come across more trash than they would if they were to walk the same distance along a road in Prudhoe. BP annually hires college students to pick up trash along the side of the roads, around pads, and around the Cold Storage Pad and dump from June through August. During these months, the only ones where The Slope is snow free, there are Summer Hires picking up trash every day it's safe. The only days they aren't set out are the ones when it's too foggy for them to see bears coming from a distance or be seen from the road.
All this is by no means an attempt to convince anyone that tapping into the reserves in ANWR is the right thing to do. But before you run your mouth about why it's evil to drill for oil there, have an informed opinion. Know what you're talking about, and formulate an argument based on fact, not just emotional appeals. If you think the only reason it's wrong is because of what drilling does to the Arctic, take a minute to reevaluate your stance on the issue. If you think it's wrong because we should be exploring alternate energy options, then come up with an argument based on that. Don't use an imaginary destruction of the Arctic environment to convince gullible and uninformed people of your opinion.

Rant number 2:
Hey, Vic Vickers!
Thank God there are so many non-Alaskans willing to work to save us. I mean, really, thank you Vic Vickers for campaigning to replace Ted Stevens as Senator. No matter that you moved from Florida and switched political parties to do so. If that doesn't make you qualified to represent us, I just don't know what does. It really is a travesty that less than 5% of voting Alaskans found you worthy of replacing Mr. Stevens. The man has only been involved in Alaskan politics since before the state actually entered the Union. Your motto of "Take back Alaska" was supremely appropriate considering both your past and that of the man you thought you stood a chance against. Damn naive Alaskans, failing to elect you.
So much for objectivity.

Couch Pains

There are two directions this entry took while being formed in my head. One was me bitching about my chronically strained and spasming back, and the other was going to turn into me driveling on about independence. I don't really like the sound of either of those, so I'm going to stop typing now and come back when I have something a little less worthless to contribute. (I guess that means this may be goodbye for a while)

Prudhoe Crazy

"Do you want a peanut?"
"No."
"Do you want ALL the peanuts?"

"If it's foggy in the morning, you're the first to die."

"I got you a present! It's Tetanus!"

"Hey Katelin! Katelin it's your lucky day! I found the rope you can hang yourself with!"

"Jessalin has been threatening to murder me all day. Reprimand her."

"I win. Go lick the truck. Truck licker."

"Double jinx. You owe me your soul."

"Shit. I need a pastry."

"I promise not to pee your truck."

"It wasn't as long as I thought it'd be - that's what she said!"

"How many times have we said 'fuck' in this conversation? That's a second-week word!"

"I just had a revelation. I'm going to break up with my girlfriend tonight!"

As concocted by two drunk Trekkies:

Blue Planet Drinking Game

1 Drink for all
drinking does not occur during credits
montage rule: instances en masse are counted as 5 drinks total (i.e. dolphins eating a school of fish/feeding frenzies = 5 drinks)

-English pronunciations/British versions of words (“nutriment”)
-superlatives
-when CGI is suspected (motion must be seconded)
-death (must be onscreen, though implied deaths are debatable. i.e., carcasses are not drunk to, though animals whose perils are observed may be)
-”SAT” words are used (words whose definitions are determined by context)
-inappropriate/common/off-color words/references are used (“weird,” etc.)
-factuality is called into question (with believable backing-up)*
-computer-created sound effects (introduction only, subsequent instances of the same sound effect are not drunk to)
-crisis music/animals going into crisis mode (music must represent plight of prey)
-people on screen
-the importance of the sun is mentioned
-”holy shit moments”/players are rendered speechless
-emotional appeals (i.e. misrepresentation of evolution, ”killers”/”murderous” to describe predation, narrator is overly vague/speculative)*
-animal cuteness is disputed
-filming of series results in scientific firsts
-bastard takings-advantage-of (i.e. eating/killing of babies and/or eggs, unfair advantages)
-symbiosis is mentioned/shown
-uncountable breedings occur on screen
-initiations on tangential hilarity

*all subjective occurrences must have at least one concurrence

Bitches.

So tomorrow I'm off again. Another 2-week adventure in paint fumes and tundra funk. I hope to God that this isn't the hitch they send us all to the dump to bag up trash for burying. Plodding my way through the tundra for 12 hours broke me enough, I can't imagine what the same amount of time in a dump would do to my spirit.
On another note, a teenage girl was mauled by a Grizzly about a half mile from my parents house a few days ago and I came home to a black bear in the driveway today. As much as I hate to be going back to work, I can't help but think that this a good time to be getting out of the area.
All is not lost in the world of me, however. I got paid on Friday!

Here's to Rambling

On a recent trip to Homer, AK, my brother and I were sitting beside our raging inferno of a campfire when we got into a discussion regarding what, exactly, flame is. I asked my chemistry teacher just that my Sophomore year of high school, but he just scoffed at me and said that it was a chemical reaction, in that "why would you ask such a moronic question" way he had about him. Much to my dismay, it was his intelligence, and not mine that was called into question during the exchange. I've considered the question virtually every time I've stoked a fire since, but it wasn't until a few days ago that I discussed it again. This is what my genius brother pulled out of his ass, with a little help from me on the details: When gases are energized to a certain point, they begin to emit photons, or pockets of light. Burning debris give off a multitude of super-heated gases during the ignition process, and these gases are in turn emitting photons. This would explain why flames flicker in the wind (the air moves the gases and in some cases cools them, thus minimizing the flame), why the flames only reach a certain distance from their original source (the gases eventually cool enough that they no longer have the energy to emit photons), and why different substances have differently colored flames (different ignition sources = different gases, different gases = different photons). It makes perfect sense to even my simple mind.
My mother and brother are flying up to Prudhoe Bay tomorrow for a "family tour." Ironically, they're going to be up there while neither my father nor I will be (note: I'm working three two-week shifts in Prudhoe Bay this summer, totaling 84 hours of work each week. I don't remember how many total hours that works out to be, all I care about is that I'm making a shit ton of money for 6 week's work. I'm sure there will be a bitchfest blog soon enough). It's interesting to watch half of my family ask the same questions and stress over the same issues as I did not a month ago. I answered their questions like a (pretending) seasoned pro. "No, Mom, don't wear Danskos and khaki. They'll get ruined." "Of course they're going to feed you, I don't know of a place up there to buy food other than the Commissary, and I doubt they're going to have you living off $7 bags of M&Ms." The most disgusting thing about the whole ordeal is that they're going to fly up, tour, and come back in less time than it takes me to complete one day of work.
My dad went to the doctor yesterday and came home almost entirely sedated. He's not yet back to full working order, so tomorrow while my brother and mother are traipsing around the arctic wasteland that I call home for half the summer, I get to be on Daddy Duty. My job is to make sure he doesn't fall down the stairs or otherwise harm himself enough to warrant a trip to the ER. This is how I love to spend my weekends: writing pointless shit by night, taking care of drugged up parents by day. This is what I was made for.
One of my best friends from high school got married today, and I wasn't there. I've got to be one of the worst friends on record. Not because I wasn't there, hell, if I'd have spent the $800 on a plane ticket to fly to Kansas for his wedding then I'd be a contender for Grand Viceroy of Friendship. No, the real issue is that I've met his now-wife a total of one time. For about 7 minutes. I've known this guy for going on 7 years. He's the one who during high school I could call crying at 3 in the morning, and who would listen to be blubber until I sobbed myself into a coma. And now I don't even know his wife. I was the first one he told when he started dating her, and then when he bought the ring, but she remains an enigma.
So Critter, my cat, is going on 19 years old. In the past 6 months she's gone from Fatcat to barely there. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when she finally dies. She's been the one constant in my life, family notwithstanding, for as long as I can remember. When we got back from Homer I was genuinely surprised to find her alive after being alone for just 4 days. Why do we have pets? Missing them is terrible.
Goddamn am I depressing. "Perk up, twatwaffle!" -that's what my brother would tell me.
On a happier (and literally lighter) note, it's well after midnight and the sky is a color of blue that reminds me of Downy. Downy-doused cotton balls. That's what I love about this place; during the summer months the nights are never darker than dusk (not to mention the fact that all the things up here that can kill you are big enough to see coming, and shoot if one is properly armed). Makes staying up 'til ungodly hours entirely too easy. It's my kind of place!

Nonsense.

I have the knees of an old woman.
Sometimes it's best to give up a fight against a lawn mower.
I try to keep my expectations low, but even so I sometimes betray myself and believe that "this time will be different."
When I grow up I'm going to have a menagerie.
I have an unhealthy obsession trench coats... and jackets in general, really.
I love Calvin and Hobbes, but if I ever have a child like Calvin I'm giving him away.
When I was little I used to wish that I had an imaginary friend.
I'd rather have dirt under my fingernails than a manicure.
I like scars that have good stories behind them.
I want to write a book, but I have neither the talent nor the intrinsic drive.
LEGOS make me feel like a little kid in the best way.
I love making books.
I plan on being the crazy cat lady when I get old and senile.
Cats that act like dogs are the coolest domestic animals EVER.
The parts of my personality that I'd most like to change are the ones that I'll never be able to.
The poetry I wrote in 4th grade was more honest and poignant than anything I could write now. I miss being that free.
I've given my brother a complex about his "Maalox toes."
I fall in love with places and situations. Not people.
Before opening up to people I have to know I can trust them, but in order to know if I can trust them I have to open up to them. Hence the extremity of how socially awkward I am.
I cover up my fear of honest conversation by being a smartass.
I won the Pine Wood Derby when I was 4, but because I'm a girl they wouldn't give me a trophy.

I've become too complacent of late:
"You got a C in Calculus." Whatever. "You're going to be working 84 hours per week for 6 weeks." Whatever. "Gas prices are through the fucking roof." Whatever. "You have $13 in your bank account and $15,000 in student loans." Whatever. "You shouldn't go for a run, there's a bear in the neighborhood." Whatever. "You need to get those credits petitioned before it's too late." Whatever.
"Your Eddie Izzard DVD is scratched. Ruined." What. The FUCK?!


1
Here we are, teetering on the precipice of greatness.
And you're already stepping back.
I can feel you pulling away.


2
I've been watching the Minutes tick by for Hours.
Each one mocks me as it passes into Obscurity.
4:02... 4:03... 4:04...

3
The ecstasy was so worth the bruises.

4
Spring is here; a new dawn is breaking.
The sun burns through the mist and the light is caught up in the tiny prisms dotting the earth.
Each leaf, each bud is Nature's own version of a disco ball.
Soon the slumbering beasts are awoken by the melody, and they clamber to join in the ruckus of rebirth.

You weren't supposed to see my footprints, how they staggered all caddywompus away from you.
I didn't want you to follow me.
There was a lantern swinging in the frigid breeze, and I hid behind the inconsistent shadow it cast in the corner by the stairs.
I saw you walking by and knew that you could hear my stuttered breathing, feel me trying to melt into the mortar and away from you.
When you stopped and turned, I knew I'd been had. My secret hideout morphed from sanctuary to prison before I could even make out your features.

I didn't ask you to save me. I didn't want you to fix me.
But there you were, pulling me out from hiding and forcing me to face the warmth with you.

The cold is so much easier.

The significance of the mundane.

I hate flying. I really, truly loathe the idea of it. Every time I'm on a plane taxiing down the runway or queued up waiting for clearance, I close my eyes and think to myself "This could very well be my last moment on Earth. And what am I doing? Sitting strapped to a chair that is almost the complete opposite of comfortable, surrounded by strangers I've been sharing recirculated air with for the last 30 minutes. What a way to go."
With the realization that I ponder the abrupt end to my short (and thus far utterly unaccomplished) life, consider this: On a recent flight from the Midwest to the 49th state, I experienced what can be considered the least nerve-wracking takeoff in the history of me+flight. I was seated next to a friendly couple who offered me the window seat (apparently they could tell how hungover I was and how much I just needed to pass the fuck out). Now, usually when I'm around couples I get painfully awkward and feel like there's a bubble of happiness surrounding them which I have to be careful not to burst with my inability to function normally in society. But with these two, I felt oddly... like a part of them? I'm not going to be able to string together the perfect words to describe what I mean, but I felt un-ostracized (my blog, my made-up words) sitting next to them. Naturally I went through my typical "I'm about to die" mental prep, but at the end of that in-desperate-need-of-an-overhaul train of thought, instead of berating myself for choosing such a stupid way to die, I told myself that if I was to die right then, next to these people, I'd be okay.
I'm not a "warm fuzzies" type of person (not true - catch me on a bad day and I'm one big ball of emotion), but I felt at peace with myself for the first time in years. It's mind-boggling to think that two complete strangers could have a more profound impact on just one moment of my life than some lifelong relationships have had.

Or who knows, maybe I was just still drunk.

There is no happily ever after.
There is a happily.
There is an after.
But the two do not exist in tandem.

Bright and shiny!

Las Vegas really is a terrible place. It's the land of excess, and I've never seen anything like it. You can get lost in The Forum at Caesar's Palace (huge anachronism, by the way) literally for hours. I've done it. Every designer worth mentioning has his own little nook in there, and they're just itching to sell you that $400 shirt that is "oh my God so fabulous!" I shit you not, there is a shoe store with a 300-pound security guard at the door. We named him Bubba. It's no wonder so many folks from other countries hate America; I hated myself a little bit for contributing to such abundance.

What's more (and worse, in my opinion), there is a depressing number of parents who take their small children to Vegas. I'm not a mother, and hopefully won't be for a while yet, but even I know that it's not okay to drunk-stumble down the Vegas Strip with a margarita in one unsteady hand and the handle of a stroller in the other. I don't approve. Not to mention the plethora of "escort service" business cards adorned with nude women that litter the sidewalk. I'm not even comfortable seeing that. How do you think it makes your impressionable 10-year-old feel? Do you really want them to get their first anatomy lesson from a hooker's business card? Kids+Vegas=scars.

As much as I bitch about the city, though, I can't deny that I'm going back in March. I'm a consumer. They've got me hooked. Mind you that I'm staying in the cheapest hotel I can find, and have made a pact with my brother to spend money only at the sketchy places.