It's the fifth of November, It's the fifth of November

It was a snowball fight of epic proportions. Begun at just the time in the afternoon when you know you have to do SOMETHING extraordinary with your day or you will have reached the 2:30 hour and realized that it's like you never had a sno-day! We gathered at the Yarch (yard-arch), split into two teams, had some democratic discussion, and began a series of capture-the-flag games. I even hit people with snowballs, and who saw THAT coming? Granted, it was mostly one person - N. - but he took it well. We now have a snowball truce. Things are looking good. After fesitivities, which included getting my face stuffed with snow, finding snow in interesting holes (nose holes, ear holes), and being tackled again after I'd already been tagged a zombie, a gigantic group of high schoolers trekked to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street and ambushed them. They never knew what was coming. We trudged in with snowy boots and frost-bitten fingers and a desperate need for warmth from SOMETHING, ANYTHING. And boy, did we dominate. They were good-natured about it, not like unto N. So I spent my snow day, I think, well, despite the fact that I still need to do my college scholarship essays and my calculus homework. We are taking this one hour at a time. And yes, I know it's not actually the fifth of November. :)

Like a pot with the top askew

Alright. Let's run away. I'll grab my gray notebook and a banana; you pick up one of those emergency packs in the front hallway. Meet at the stop sign on the corner, three thirty sharp. I think I'll make some PB&J sandwiches first, though. Wheat bread, crunchy peanut butter, and strawberry jam, just how you like it. I think we should go somewhere without alligators, windy days, and noises outside the window. I'm not going to shut the windows. When it rains, I'll sit on the bathroom floor and listen to it pound down on the pine needles of the tree outside, the wood pile, the leafy bottom floor. A place with no junk food, I'm thinking. No bad quality movies and bed posts that you can bang your toes on. Bed posts hurt sometimes. I know we've been planning for this for a while, and I agree with you. We'll go rock-climbing at that gym first. You can snatch me away after I've had a hard day at school and I need some perspective. I'll bring my Euro textbook and you can help me learn how to climb mountains. My brain feels spongy, at this very present moment. The kind of sponge you toss into the wash because it's disintegrating and you've washed one too many dishes with it when you could have used it to paint something beautiful on your white-washed walls. We'll paint the space on the stairs that's white; we'll get little jars of every color paint you can imagine and paint in stripes. They say stripes are the new black. Oh, I love you all so much. Do you know how my heart aches for you, for you to be home with me? My heart needs you home so I can watch over you, so I can make sure that you are okay, that nobody hurts you. Maybe eternity's not so very far away, but anything could happen between now and eternity, and I just can't let anybody hurt you. So here we go. The sandwiches and bottles of sweet lemonade are packed. I've got a couple of sharpened pencils we won't be needing. Let's run to where we need to go.

Studio 60

Now is the time to stop procrastinating and start actually doing something, says she. I must have watched more than a day, really, of television shows on hulu.com, of the Harvey Girls, of Martian Child and Ghost Town, of After the Thin Man, clips of I was a Male War Bride, Homeless to Harvard (which I confused with the Harvey Girls, but that distinction has been clarified), and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. All while on break for a week. Apparently, it's winter. I have papers to write, pieces to practice, rooms to rearrange and clean up, words like scume (scy-oom) to push into my vocabularic brain, mothers to be forgiven of, tests to study for, and food not to eat. So I sit here, yearning for more Studio 60 and Heroes, chocolate cheesecake with oreos and answers to half-hearted, silly questions, and procrastinating. That is what I am. I am a procrastinator. Of time and purpose. I always thought that sounded cool... ever since I'd added the last bit on. And yet, procrastinating isn't cool. It isn't fun. Yes, I enjoy the time not spent doing something I don't want to do. But I could probably count the number of times I've reviewed something that I'd written, just because I'm used to the idea that you work at 2am, even though you don't want to, and print it out the next morning to try not to be late for school. I wonder what would happen if someone actually read my essays. :( Somehow, I think the world would end. But maybe it would teach me a lesson that I've needed to learn for a long, long time. And Studio 60. I'm finished with the season. I've spent the last forever just watching, just waiting to see what happened with Harriet and what's-his-name... Matt. I find myself doing Harriet impersonations, but I'm really just trying to act like she would in a situation. Somehow, that doesn't sound like the best idea. Where has the world gone? Where has my brain gone, my work ethic, my faith, my attempts at kindness and service and being sensitive to the pain of others? Where has my love for people gone? Why did it disappear so suddenly? I don't want to be a bad movie star impersonator for the rest of my life; I don't want to find myself, or others, ridiculous. I don't want to keep putting off what needs to be done just because I trust myself enough to beat time. I almost always can. But what has that taught me? Where am I going?

Bubble-wrapped

I would like somebody to blow a bubble. I’d like it to float softly in the air towards my open mouth until I swallow the glittering, light-reflecting soap ball. Then it would travel down my throat and squeeze in through the little spaces between my organs until it followed the signs to my fragile, pumping heart. The bubble would silently, so slowly and so gently, wrap my heart in its bubbly-mass. Then my heart would be in a bubble. Maybe it’d be uncomfortable at first. But I think I could get used to it. Why is it that when we talk about heartbreak, the heart is the organ we mention? The pumping, beating heart, never stopping until it stops, living until it dies. A. says one of the science teachers carries a pig heart around in her shoulder bag. Maybe it wasn’t a shoulder bag. I can’t remember. Hearts are so funny. Something about how the most complex and the simplest are always the most beautiful. The world’s so hard sometimes; it just feels nice to've been given the ability to cry. Sometimes, I wish the earth would stop spinning just for a second… maybe just a little longer. Only long enough to let me understand some things, let other things fall into place. Gather my armies. World, please just let me gather my armies.