when the sky falls.

i can't work in accounting forever.

i will lose my mind.

leaves will be falling down, down.

fall is coming, people. i have proof:

1. it's starting to get darker earlier. you can only notice this a smidgen though.
2. it's definitely staying darker later. proof of this statement is that i now have to turn on the lamp to get ready in the mornings instead of using sunlight. also the sun hits my silver dash in the mornings and about blinds me when i try to drive.
3. football season is a little over 2 weeks away (hail state!)
4. stores already have halloween candy out (thinking that makes me want to sew a costume. but i think i'll recycle a costume if i dress up this year).
5. school starts next week.
6. the low temp tonight will be firmly sitting in the mid-60s.
7. the tropics are getting more active.


yay fall!

i'll take my chances.

it's been a long time since i've logged on to this blog, and an even longer time since i've made any changes to the design. after looking at it a bit, i decided the owl layout was cute, but it needed to go. so out with the old, in with the new, more grown-up blog, with a few more custom enhancements. enjoy the new look yall! :)

all i want for christmas is you.

first of all, i would like to say how much i hate standard time. it's a lot. here are reasons why it sucks:

1. it starts getting dark at 4pm. i'm still at work at 4pm. so i miss all daylight except for the 20 minutes i drive to work.

2. it's a dark ride home, and pitch black when i get there. hard to check the mail when you can't see anything.

3. it makes me feel like bedtime is sooner. when it's been so dark for so long, i feel like i should be in bed even though it's only 7 (also that makes me sound way older than i am).

4. when i have an off day, and i choose to spend it shopping, i go to stores that have out christmas decorations and michael buble christmas albums on sale. add in the fact that it is relatively cold outside, and i start having premature festive holiday feelings. so then i go home and put on the aforementioned album and break my personal rule of only listening to christmas music in the appropriate christmas music season (from black friday to boxing day). and then i am ashamed.

5. as much as i love michael buble's voice, it is too early to have christmas carols and other christmas songs stuck in my head. and i definitely have "all i want for christmas is you" running around in my brain.

those last two parts are the reason why i hate standard time most.

tears are sometimes words from the heart.

maybe part of the curse of life is that we'll always long for what we don't have. very few, if any, of us are completely satisfied with what we already have.

is this a bad thing? a thought to distract us, to torment us?

or is it just a way to make us dream bigger? to rise up and accomplish what otherwise might not get done?

can it be both?

like the soundtrack of a july saturday night.

today i roasted marshmallows over half a lifetime of my memories.

in case that sounded too dramatic, let me fill you in on the specifics. when i was younger, i filled page after page of mundane daily activities into pink books with sleeping cats pictured on the front. later, i wrote mostly about boys and anything that could be defined as overly-dramatic teen angst into cutesy spiral notebooks. then it evolved into non-descript spiral notebooks of ramblings, some entries several days together and some spaced months apart. last post, i told of how i ripped out all the pages of them and put them into a cardboard box to wait until burn day. which was today.

i used a ridiculous amount of matches, sat indian-style on the edge of the newer half of the driveway, and burned almost all of my fingers setting random pages on fire before dropping them in the ditch below to turn to ash. i untangled a hanger and roasted three marshmallows while my cat sat a little way away and stared at me, clearly indicating he thought i was insane. half an hour into this process, when i have inhaled more smoke than is healthy and accidently scorched part of my left leg, and i was sweating in my black tshirt due to the august sunshine and fire, my neighbor comes across the street carrying his fat (and adorable) infant grandson. he walks around both assessible sides of the ditch to get a better look at what i was doing, all the while making small talk about how his youngest son (not the one with the baby) finished his master's program online and landed a part-time job at a college about an hour away and was bringing home $20 an hour for the effort. said son and i have maybe spoken a handful of times, even though he lives across the street, because he's about four years older than i am and more than likely went to a different school. shortly after my neighbor left, my elementary school bus driver drove her bus to the end of the driveway, opened the door, and preceeded to ask exactly what i was doing. after telling her i was burning pages in the the ditch, she asked why i didn't just shred them. i explained that if the penguin could tape together old papers, so could someone else, and i wasn't taking chances. oh, and i gave less-than-helpful directions to an old man in a minivan.

then i dumped a giant orange home depot bucket full of water on top of what was left of the ashes, collected the mail and leftover marshmallows, and called it a day. but none of that sounded as poetic or enticing as my first sentence, although it is a better story.

past.

under my bed is a small cardboard box filled to the brim with journals. i've kept every one that i've written in, every single page, since i was 8 years old. however, i keep thinking that i really don't want some future (or present) generation to find them and read how stupid i was growing up. and a lot of it details relationships that i am no longer in and no longer care about, so i never read them, either.

i keep getting random urges to clean out my childhood from my bedroom. hopefully i will be moving on soon (not that i absolutely hate living at home, because i don't, i am just really excited about the prospect of having a larger room, a larger bed, a personal bathroom, and all the decorating possibilities i can dream of). but i don't want to have to carry all of the stuff that is in my room right now with me for the rest of my life.

so, i think i may have a mini-bonfire soon. with the pages of all my old journals. my written history, reduced to ashes in my yard.

between the drinks and subtle things.

so lately i've seen a lot of blogs/tweets/facebook posts condemning (mostly) women about reading 50 shades of grey and watching magic mike.

even though so far, i have done neither, this is my rebuttal.

first and foremost, i think that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. and i respect that. but, having said that, there is a real difference between an opinion and a judgement. i've read blogs where other female writers claim to be stating an opinion - and one that they will claim as being Biblical - before painting themselves as holier-than-thou and stating that reading or watching the aforementioned is absolutely wrong and a huge sin. i'm fine with your opinion. but when you tell me that i am absolutely in the wrong, it really irks me.

sure, watching magic mike and drooling over channing tatum may make you want to point out that lusting in my heart is just as bad as commiting adultry. but how can you justify watching friends with benefits or wedding crashers and still tell me that i'm the one in the wrong?

we all have different things that cause us to sin, friends. does drinking a beer on a friday night qualify as a great big sin? it does to some. but not to others. i would like to share the opinion that maybe watching a movie or reading a book won't affect everyone the same way.

so before you condemn me for planning a girls' night out to watch magic mike, may i suggest that you study your own planks before my splinters?

i'm only good at being young.

college didn't prepare me for this.

television doesn't want me, the nws doesn't want me, and now grad school doesn't want me either. so instead, i have turned into a college graduate who sits at home in her pajamas every day and reads library books she's already read before, and has no idea what to do with her life.

my mom researches jobs on google for me while she is at work, jobs i have already applied for and obviously didn't get since i haven't heard anything. even grocery stores at home won't hire me, so in essense, i am broke and have no fun because there is no money for fun. also there is no one to guide me through my directionless life so i am adrift alone.

and the worst part is that while i'm not great at the weather, i'm not good at anything else, either.

keep me where the light is.

sometimes you meet a person, and they automatically make you want to be a better person, just by being around them.

i've met several of those people in my lifetime. this most recently happened last thursday night. i am continually inspired and amazed at these people, and by the goodness that just radiates off of them on a daily basis. i am blessed to be able to call many of them 'friend.'

mondays.

what is it about a person when all they have to do is be gone for a while then surprise you by walking into a room, and your entire body fills with joy?

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

fall may not be here to stay yet...but it's definitely taken up residence in my heart. it's easy to feel fallish when it's a lovely 59 degrees outside, you got to wear a hoodie for the first time in months last night, and you are currently wearing fleece pajamas and a sweatshirt. football season started last week, the air is crisp, the leaves are beginning to change colors (in places). the sun is setting earlier, halloween is just 54 days away, and all the stores are making the autumn changeover.

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

it puts me in such a fantastic mood. i'm already excited about the months to come. it's a chain reaction of greatness. once september rolls around, you blink and it's october, then the festivities really get started. it's going to be good. just wait.

it makes the ache a little more profound.

my dreams are full of wishes, and when i wake up, i remember every one.

no one quite understands and i can't quite explain the ache in my heart. it's the things i want so badly, but am never sure that i'll have. it's like the hope that blossoms inside my heart secretly wants to kill me.

sometimes i think that the waiting of life would be easier if i could only know that there was a reason i was waiting.

if only i could see the stars.

i have unusual sleep patterns.

for example, since the fourth of july, i have stayed awake until usually between 5:30 and 8 am, and then i sleep until 2-4 pm. generally.

it is hard to explain to people that i genuinely like to stay awake all night. it is the only time that the building is asleep, and it is quiet. i can concentrate. i don't have to worry about the phone ringing, people screaming in the lobby or knocking on my door, or random people roaming my hall. i like the peace that being awake in the middle of the night gives me.

i always have my window open. i like hearing the crickets sing all night long, and just before the sun rises to greet me, hearing the birds chirping their morning songs.

i've seen more sunrises this month than i probably have in my entire life. it makes my heart just as happy to see the light beginning to peek over the side roof of south as it does to see the pinks and oranges sink behind hathorn and cresswell. my window frames my perspective.

also, it is proving to be good practice for later on...if i get a morning show job next year, i'll have to be awake and alert at this time anyway.

my only issue with staying up all night is that the rest of the world doesn't operate on my new schedule (which would defeat the purpose, of course). but then i have phones ringing and fire alarms and people needing me and places to go and appointments to keep all day, and i end up cranky and exhausted, with only about 30% of my brain working by 5pm. then i sleep till about midnight, and the process begins again.

however, with training starting in about ten days, i have to orient myself around the world again. my heart is saddened by the loss of those nighttime hours, the cricket's song, and dawn breaking over the world.

"was it inevitable?

was there some quota of sadness that had to dealt to every person? was that just the way love worked? because that was the underlying problem - without love, there could be no real pain. love contained within it the seeds of loss and bitterness and grief.

love. it was just like alcohol. a little fun followed by a long, painful hangover."

homesick.

i went home for the fourth of july.

i walked outside the first night i was home, to move a car out of the driveway, and it was so dark that i was absolutely stunned. first of all, the fact that the dark can render me speechless is very, very sad indeed. i guess i never realized how constantly lit my world was until i was back home, in the middle of the woods, where there is probably only one streetlight in my whole neighborhood. but you know what? i could see every, single star.

i went shopping with my mom the next day, and we spent hours in town getting things done and running errands. HOURS. i, again, was floored. because here, running errands can be done in a single store, and it only takes ten minutes to get to walmart. even when grocery shopping for the first time in a month, for two people, it only takes a little over an hour.

later that same night, i was reading in my room long after everyone else had gone to sleep. i got up to go use the bathroom, and again was astounded by how dark everything was. i had to navigate my way to the bathroom using familiarity of the house, which was once second nature, but now a foreign-esque concept, because my hallway here is lit up with emergency lights at all times.

settling back in bed, i turned the lights off and stared at my make believe galaxy constructed of hundreds of glow in the dark stars and planets stuck to my ceiling. i can't remember exactly how old i was when we discovered those, but my brother and i went crazy sticking them to everything. well...he stuck them to everything (including furniture) but i wanted all of them on my ceiling, all OVER my ceiling. my reasoning was that i rearranged my furniture so often (and i did, usually once every couple of months or so) that if i only put them in one spot, i couldn't see them from wherever my bed was to go next. so we put them all over the whole room. and these aren't the hard plastic stars that glow, these are plain, almost invisible stickers. on my ceiling, which is painted white, you can't even seem them until the lights are turned off. then it's like you're in another world. annnyway, i settled in bed and was looking at my galaxy, and i heard something. or rather, the lack of something. crickets were singing their little hearts out just outside my window, and i could hear the whistle of a train horn as it was coming down the tracks across the highway. other than that, i realized i was hearing a blissful silence. something i never get to hear at school.

had i really been away from home so long that all of these things surprised me? starkville isn't exactly what you would call a big city...or even a small city, at that. but living on campus is like living in a tiny little bubble in mississippi. i felt like i'd been living in a town so long that coming back to the country of alabama was like coming to another world. it was a welcome relief. a change of scenery, one i desperately needed.

i woke up the next morning with a sore shoulder. having most of my stuff away at school does have some drawbacks, i suppose. maybe you don't know, but my shoulder pops out of place at will. it doesn't hurt, but it feels and sounds gross to my friends. the only time it ever bothers me is if i sleep wrong, and my shoulder pops out and presses into the mattress overnight. then i wake up with stiff shoulders, and they ache all day long. without my regular pillow, i'd managed to pop my shoulder out overnight, and sleep with it that way.

but oh! what a small price to pay for the comforts of a home! to share a shower with two people instead of forty, and to not have to wear shoes! to have a kitchen with a full sized refrigerator, and a stove to cook my sweet tea on (because every self respecting southern girl knows how to make sweet tea), and a kitty cat to hug even when he is hot and grumpy and doesn't want to be hugged. a place where friends have been friends for a lot longer than your school semesters...even when they do silly things like fly to los angeles with people you've never met without telling you first.

it's been two days since i've been home, and i do miss all of the things listed here. i am also glad to be back in my own space. my room here is bigger, but it contains all i own in this box of living space. it's not quite the same as a home...but my bed is more comfortable. i'm not sure what that means, exactly, but if you figure it out, let me know.

it should have already begun.

i am ready for the next chapter.

come pick me up.

life confounds me.

i really don't know how to describe it any better than that. nor do i have the words to adequately describe how i am feeling.

which is precisely why i'm staring at this screen, unable to sleep, and listening to ben folds again.


i've landed.

frustration.

i need an ally.

old blue backpacks.

i wanted to post about a long lost-ish friend and all the conversations we had...my ever present blue jansport, that chair that was pretty much reserved for my unexpected visits; discussing the topic of the moment, whether that was childhood home stories, upcoming trips, or miniature breakdowns that sometimes included tears (mine).

but that was the extent, so i guess i have nothing else to say.