Well, I didn’t end up going to the beach for a day like I had wanted to, mostly out of a reluctance to drive when there was a high chance of rain.
So I went to the zoo instead. Pictures will be forthcoming, when I return.
I’ll be leaving for Atlanta tomorrow early in the AM and will not return until August 5 or 6. Wish me luck though, in finding a place to stay.
Until then, goodbye everyone (all one person who reads this… haha), and be safe!! I’ll be back soon!
A memory:
She is very small, so small that getting up on the low bed proves arduous; she hoists herself up with her arms and then jumps up and down until her father tells her to stop. Her brothers, smiling their identical lopsided smiles, clamber up after her and splay themselves on either side of her father, who is on his stomach, a book open in front of him.
The girl waits for a moment and picks at the soft cotton comforter on which they sit. The fabric is cool except for where her father has been resting; there it is warm and indented with his weight; she feels as if she is falling into him, into the book they are about to hear. They have been reading it for several days now. The girl loves the story and the characters, the thrill of hearing what’s next.
Her father begins to read out loud in his soothing baritone voice. The girl lets the words wash over her, picturing herself a thousand feet underwater, or floating out in space, or fighting dragons. The image changes with each story her father reads.
This night, the images don’t particularly inspire her, but they take on a different life when she sits on top of her father’s back. She is still small and fits easily; her brothers imitate her, one sitting on either leg. But the girl puts her head down on her father’s back and ignores them. She can hear her father speaking, but it is simply a low, steady rumble, like the sea. And like waves he breathes smoothly through the sentences and words, his body rising and falling, rising and falling.
I had never seen Phantom of the Opera until my stepmom told me we were going to go see it on Tuesday at the Kennedy Center. Then, since I hate not knowing what’s going on during an opera, I decided to watch the 2004 DVD we had sitting around in the basement. Emmy Rossum is Christine and Gerard Butler (!) is the Phantom.
Who ever said apartment hunting out-of-state was so difficult? No one. Who’s extended help? Nearly no one. Very little advice. And definitely no more than a pfft, good luck! from the loving family.
The path always turns down and she jogs down it like an old woman, one who does not have her cane with which to steady herself. So much for the knee injuries, which complain as she stomps down to the bottom of the hill and into the forest.
Despite the nagging pain and the tightness growing in her chest as she continues on, it is a beautiful day and she can think of nothing better than spending it outside.
She runs as far as she dares to go with her injuries, and then stops, panting, at the side of the stream. It trickles merrily next to her, and the girl steps out gingerly into the water, balancing on a large white rock that juts out from the surface. It is dry there but sloped at a steep angle and she crouches down to steady herself. The movement disturbs small fish who had been hiding in the dark shadows; the girl looks down into the water and sees them, nearly invisible on top of the grit of the creek bed.
The day moves on; she stays crouched there, staring into the lazy waters, watching the water striders walking delicately from one rock to the next, the crayfish resting in the shallows, the small fish braving the open waters for a moment, then disappearing the next.
In a nutshell, because I have a headache and can’t think in complete sentences…
Friday:
- swim
- errands and writing online, learning php
- great dinner with an awesome friend in EC
- watch Dad’s band play for a bit
- drive to White Marsh for the Harry Potter event
- back to friend’s house, sleep
Saturday:
- work very early
- drive to the gym; find it closed
- drive home, begin reading Deathly Hallows
- dinner. avoid guests. read DH
- finish DH around 11:00 PM
- sleep
Today:
- wake up very early for work
- drive to work
- get asked inane questions. not a moment to spare
- close with a headache
- drive home
- pretend to sleep off headache
- dinner with family
I feel like it’s been a good few days. Tomorrow is the start of my vacation; I have a week and a half or so to myself. I’ll be looking for a new place to live, beginning to look for a new job, and generally relaxing and taking a break. I’ll get to enjoy time with the Boy, whichever friends want to pick me up (no car this week!) and whisk me off somewhere fun, and myself.
I’m excited.
Just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Wow, just wow.
She is running again, but this time it is in light of the beautiful day. She runs under dappled sunlight, then parallel to the small stream which wanders over smooth grey stones. Her path is grass, then packed dirt, then rocks.
She has a memory of being left on the curb as a teenager during her first week of high school.
It is after practice, and all of the other students had gone home already. The sky was growing dark. There ware fireflies dancing in front of her, and she sits on the curb. Wonders where her ride was. Nobody came.
Finally, she uses a pay phone just outside the school entrance to call her house, and when she does, a tired-sounding voice mutters a greeting.
You’ve left me here, she says to the voice.
The voice tells her that she’ll be picked up in a little while.
And so she sits down to wait again. The sky turns puce with the light pollution of the closest cities. There are no stars that she can see. Just the faint rustle of the leaves in the trees across the street from her. The stone curb digs into the back of her legs. The girl thinks she feels bugs crawling on her.
She waits.
The girl remembers this and winces with the pain of her complaining knees. The path ahead is long and broken. She turns back, enough for one day, feeling the sweat pouring down her brow and back, but resolves to come back soon.
It’s the most gorgeous day outside, sunny and breezy. The windows here at the house are open to allow the air inside since we’ve been shut up since it turned muggy. I felt full of vitality, and so my brother and I went swimming and then to pick up a credit card I had misplaced for a few hours.
It feels good to be outside and active. It feels good to have the day off, to have plans with friends for later, and to have slept most of the night through.
Harry Potter is today, as well. Can you tell I’m excited?
These are some of the things I would like to do during my twenty-second year:
- find and keep a full time job
- find some appropriate insurance
- make enough money to save some for myself each month
- make enough money to make my car and insurance payments on time
- make enough money to, in a few months, help pay for rent/utilities
- spend only sparingly on my credit card
- learn how to budget properly
- join the GT gym and go at least three times a week
- keep swimming at least twice a week (keeping up, of course, with my routine of 1000 meters per swim)
- make friends with the people that live near us, or who work with Boy, or at my own job
- keep in touch with friends back at home and my parents
- maintain this website as well, so that I don’t stop writing
- apply for grad school by the end of fall to at least two places
- beef up my writing portfolio
- save for a long vacation in late 2008 or summer of 2009. Hopefully for somewhere overseas. Something awesome.
- read lots of books
- completely kick my caffeine addiction
- go back to school (community college, for something fun like French, or maybe some kind of computer class) for a bit
- get my own cellphone plan. And a better phone.
My future is starting (well, maybe it’s always already here)! I am getting more and more excited. Good things are happening.
I had a great birthday. Lots of people wished me happy birthday, and one dropped off cupcakes to my work . I ate out, got a cool present and spent time enjoying myself. This is how things should be.
Next week will be even better. I start the first week of my vacation with a trip to see Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center with my stepmom and sister, and then Friday I leave for Georgia with the Boy. We have a couple places picked out so far (I’m superstitious and believe that if I let everybody see it, the place will be jinxed somehow and we won’t get it), and hopefully we’ll get what we want. Then it’s back for a family reunion (not mine) and then I count down the weeks until I leave!
It’s going to be a good year.