Nowhere I'd Rather Be To Watch It All Burn Away

   I was laying in a slide from my childhood, looking at the smaller hill north of Mount Diablo. I saw the fires burning, three bright dots straight in a row, like bed bug bites. I didn't want to think about the time we had bed bugs in London. About the time I had bed bugs in London. I didn't want to think about the fires burning so bright I could see them from miles away. I didn't want to think about the boyfriend I had in high school that might have lived near there, or the hilltop we shared. The one that might have been burning.
   I wanted to think about how beautiful the fire was, and how perfect of a night it felt like. Just a little bit warm, a little bit breezy. Perfect weather to burn a drought-spelled hill to cinders.
   I wanted to think about how beautifully the sun had set, lighting up the smoke clouds in rainbow colors spanning half the sky. I wanted it to burn. Because I wanted to stop being me.
   I wanted to hang out with my work guys and be the me that they knew, not the me from college who tutored kids and was in a professional fraternity and cared about everyone more than herself. I wanted to be someone else. One that no one knew, because I had always been the good girl. I had always been the girl to count on, the good listener, the good friend, the girl who wanted to be loved and liked.
    I want to act without thinking, live without planning. I wanted to be Shiva, the Destroyer. I wanted everything to burn, to crumble and die. I wanted to be some other me. Someone who didn't cry at everything. Someone fierce and brave. And reckless. And fearless.
   And as the winds changed, and the fires with them, turning from bed bugs to flea bites, my fury cooled, my drunkenness
wore off and I realized I do not want to be this other me. I just want to be happy.

On Best Friends

   I remember when I first started thinking of what made the difference between a friend and a best friend. At the time I didn't realize, but it was also how I could distinguish best friends from enemies.
   There's this moment in You've Got Mail where they're talking about the feeling of never knowing what to say in an argument. Meg Ryan always thinks of the perfect thing, just a little too late. Tom Hanks on the other hand always knows what to say, but regrets it as soon as he does. I remember thinking that a best friend would always know all the worst things to say to you and never ever say any of it.
   I don't remember when exactly it was that I thought of this. I wish I could say it was a Tuesday, driving around mid-afternoon in my car, windows down, hands tight on the wheel, foot loose on the gas, but I can't. I don't remember, I just remember the feeling as this thought coursed through me - power, sympathy, and something else.
   It was a new friend that I realized this with. A friend that I had really been aware of when our friendship turned from good friends to best friends. With all my best friends before that, I had never noticed that moment, that particular best-friendship moment.
   I remember looking at another friend of mine, my feet on her bed, and thinking, "She doesn't like feet on her bed." She looked at me and I knew she was thinking the same thing. Then she said, "Ya know, I really don't mind. With you." And that was it. We knew we were best friends, but that wasn't the start of it, of the best-friendship, just the moment we realized it.
   With this friend though, it was after learning something new, something hidden and secret and powerful. I had peeked at something I felt like I shouldn't have. But I hadn't peeked - I had been given this knowledge. It was a gift, but the real gift was power. I had this new power over my friend, that I knew something that no one else did, not really anyway. And I didn't like it. I still don't like the idea that friendship has anything to do with power, who has it, who has more of it. All of a sudden though, our friendship had power.
   This isn't to say that it didn't before. My friend already knew more of my embarrassing moments and 'secrets' than I would ever care to admit. I say 'secrets' because I can barely keep anything to myself, and I hate keeping things from friends. My friend wasn't like that though, wasn't a share-er, didn't just let any old thing slide. Everything was kept tight, under wraps, hidden away. And then shared like a Christmas present, like a gift I could never give back. Something my friend would never have wanted to take back either. Whatever it was, we could never go back from there.
   It wasn't just a power shift that I felt, there was sympathy - I knew of someone else's pain, a fear, a secret. As a person, I'm very sympathetic, deeply feeling and understanding (I like to think I'm more the last one than I might actually be). This really wasn't much different. I felt a pang for the burden of all the secrets my friend carried, and knew that this was only one of many. Although this secret had now been shared with me, it did not make the secret any less of a burden for my friend. It had been and always would be something that weighed deeply on the mind.
   With this secret, our friendship had changed irrevocably. And I liked it. I like that I had this new best friend, someone new to share things with - triumphs and losses, heartbreak and joy. I always hoped my friend felt the same way, and I think by sharing that secret, they had already felt it.With my friend and this secret and this moment, I realized something in a very strong and startling moment - it was something I could never ever say, and never ever use against them. I knew this secret had the power to hurt my friend if others knew, but I also knew it was a weakness, a kryptonite of a kind, and I could wield it against my friend like a sword sent straight to the heart. I knew that it was something I could never be truly forgiven for, if I ever did, and for years to come I would hold that thought in my heart. Whenever I was mad or upset, whenever I did something stupid in anger and frustration, I knew that line was there and that I would never want to cross it. I knew my friend's well being was more important than getting even.
   That day I realized that was the difference between friends and best friends. If we had just been friends, I would never have known a secret like that. And if I had ever used it against him, we would have gone past best friends and into whatever dark land was on the other side of the line I didn't want to cross.

  After graduating and leaving school, I've started to realize how important my friendships are, from college, high school, work even, and I just want to acknowledge that I might not have always been the best friend I could have been, but that all my friendships over the years have been so important to me.

How Universal Pain Is Entirely Unique

I was driving with my brother yesterday and somehow we got talking about Saving Private Ryan, and he mentioned when they talk about "fubar." The guys in the troupe won't tell the translator what it is; it means fucked up, beyond all recognition/any repair/all reason. It's a military term, and it's a thing. It's not just from the movie, that's what gets me the most.
I don't know how we got talking about this, but he wondered why they wouldn't tell the translator guy what it meant. He said he looked it up in his dictionary and he couldn't find it. As someone who writes and reads, I started thinking about why someone wouldn't explain it. I told my brother, "Maybe they didn't want to make him fucked up. Like once you hear it, you can never stop thinking about it." His response was that of course he was fucked up, he was in a war, everyone was fucked up. So I said he was the innocent one of the group, maybe they wanted to protect him. He said they couldn't, in the end he was just some stupid shmuck who let his friends get killed because he was too scared to kill some German.

And then he made fun of him.

Yeah, it's just a movie, and he's just an actor, and I'm pretty sure my brother was joking, but still. Really? shouldn't we be at least a little put off when someone, even jokingly, makes fun of what a soldier has gone through? Especially me and my brother. We have never known anyone personally who went off to war.
The movie was based on a true story, and even if it never featured a translator like the one in the movie, there were thousands of men who were just like him, book smart, ambitious, and they wanted to do right by their country. They were innocent, at least to some extent. To me, they didn't explain it to him because if he couldn't be saved, if the most innocent among them couldn't be protected, what hope did any of them ever have? And maybe that's all they had to cling to in their shit infested lives of war.

But it also got me thinking about something else as we drove through Orinda, Moraga, Lafayette, affluent places that feature outdoor Shakespeare, (multi-)million dollar homes, and fine dining, what right did we have to say anything about what they went through in the war? I thought about suffering, how universal it is, and yet, how unique. It reminds me of a song, What It's Like a song by the band Everlast. It talks about several different scenarios in which someone is in a difficult position, a homeless man, a pregnant woman, and a drug dealer.

Then you really might know what it's like.

The pregnant woman story always stood out to me. "God forbid you ever have to walk a mile in her shoes. Cause then you really might know what it's like to have to choose." As a woman, it's something I feel strongly about. But that's another blog for another time.

In all our pain, we forget that feeling pain is universal, but that each pain is unique. We can't underestimate someone else's pain. There are so many different kinds, and so many different people. To say there is one pain is to say there is one person.

On that same drive home, past Lafayette, there's a hill full of crosses and stars and moons, crosses for those that have died in service. It reminds me of another pain - the pain those losses caused their loved ones. That is a horse of a different color.

Tommorrow Will Be Kinder

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder 

This is an image I found on Pinterest from someone else on Facebook.

 When I first posted it, I wrote something below it. "The Draco one is the saddest." And it probably is. Draco's story is heartbreaking, and relatable, and amazing. He's an interesting character because he's not all good, and he's not all bad. He makes hard choices, and screws up, and fights for what he believes in, and loses terribly. He's a tragic character, and I love it.

But now that I look at it again, I think mostly of Harry's.
I love when I love a side character more than the main character. I feel like they get so much love, and I love to love the underdog. But here, it's not about how much I love Harry, which is debatable.

It's about Harry's reaction.
The scream when Sirius dies. The silent scream. The pain unheard, but certainly felt.
As a cinema student, I fully understand why they did this. And I love it. I (hope I) would have made the same choice. I think they did that because the silent scream is so powerful. It is so much more tragic than Draco even. Harry's loss is something that not everyone can relate to, but this way, we see it, we feel it. It puts it at the perfect distance for every single person to feel it, regardless of each audience member's experiences.

I love that scream.

It's a strange thing to love. That scream, and just that image embody everything that is truly heartbreaking about the Harry Potter book, and there is plenty. It is so full of pain and tragedy and loss.

But maybe I don't love that image because of that. Maybe I love it because of the words over this image set. "Tomorrow Will Be Kinder"

I don't have any idea how I feel about that. I just know that it evokes something powerful in me. Something that makes me want to Cry and Scream at the sky. Make it rage and quake. To demand that tomorrow is not the only thing that will be kinder, that today will be kinder too. That we can't keep putting off things we feel because we don't know what to do about it now. Like this, I don't know what to write, so I just keep writing, and I hope that somehow it matters, even if it's just for me. But maybe I can make tomorrow a little bit kinder. And if I'm lucky, maybe I can make that change today.

PS Sorry it's not Tuesday.

The Merits of Being in Love (in 17th Century Virginia)

I love the song, "If I Never Knew You" from the special edition of Pocahontas. Absolutely, completely love this song. It's about being glad you know someone, and love them, even if it doesn't work out. But I think it's about more than just love, it's about life - being grateful that you've lived the life you have, even if it's not what you thought you wanted.

John Smith tells her that loving her showed him a different side of love, something I completely agree with. Being in a relationship is a completely different way of living, thinking for two, rather than one. It provides a different perspective on life, something we can't really understand until we've met someone for whom we would see the world differently.

Pocahontas tells him, "I thought our love would be so beautiful, somehow we'd make the whole world bright. I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong." That's another thing I feel strongly about, hate on love. As someone who is rather liberal, and has always been in love with love, I have to admit that I don't understand the opinion of hating love. That there is any kind of love that is "wrong."

I thought our love would be so beautiful...

This is something that's coming up again now, and I want to talk about it as much as I can because I have friends I care about, and that there would be laws that would make them second class citizens because of who and how they love baffles me. Absolutely floors me. I freely admit that I don't know all the politics about it, but I think that's also the point - it's about love, not politics. It's just about love. I don't get it. And I don't know if I want to understand. I just want to love, and be loved. I think that's something we can all agree on. Or should agree on.


There's one last thing about this song, something I'm not sure I really understand.

If I never felt this love...

Pocahontas: "It would have been better if we'd never met. None of this would have happened."

John Smith: "Pocahontas, look at me. I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you."

This happens right at the beginning of the scene. While John is tied up for the murder of Kocoum.
John's telling her he wouldn't change a minute of their time together. Which is romantic and cute and all that, but Kocoum is still dead, and it's a shitty situation, but he's dead because of them. And I think they know it. I think that brings up another idea about love: being selfish. Sometimes it's a good thing, and in John Smith's words, can't think of any examples right now...


Their love might have been beautiful, but it still got someone killed. Love is never black and white, plain and simple. It's tricky and elusive and should be worth being blind and selfish. I think. I don't know. I do, however, think that it's something everyone should get to experience for themselves, regardless of orientation.

Keep on Loving

- AJ

Love is Not At Random

Just last night, I heard this line in my head, completely out of nowhere.
"I refuse to believe that this is what you want."

Now, this happens quite often to me, getting movie or television quotes or song lyrics stuck in my head, usually just a line or two, but when you string them all together, I think it means something. Some way my subconscious tells me about how I've been feeling and with a commentary on it. Kind of like the way a dream can make you rethink something in your waking life.

So, naturally as part of the online generation, I googled the line to see what it was from.
And I got nothing.
So I did some more googling and I found this line, and it just seemed too perfect for words: "I'm sorry, I refuse to believe that love is at random." - Charlotte York

That's what this week is about. Love.
Because I've wanted to talk about it for a while, but I never know how.
Because it's always something I want to talk about, no matter what.
Because that's who I am, and I love that most about myself, how I love.

I love completely, generally unconditionally, with all my heart, and until it kills me. Even though I love this most about myself, I am not always like this. Sometimes I feel I love too much, and I feel like it does kill me. I begin to doubt myself, and how I live and mostly how I love. But time passes, and I heal, just as I always do, as everyone does, and I go back to my place of peace and love.

I also travel a lot. I feel like it's not all that much, but it is. Probably. I can't even being to count the number of plane rides I've taken, the number of cities I've visited, the sheer uncountable number of people I have met and befriended over my last 21 years. Strangely, the number of people I've seen, and the number of places I've seen them, doesn't even begin to come close to the number of people on this Earth. So logically, there is a greater chance that I have not met most of the people I could possibly be happy with in my life. (This is based off the idea that I, and everyone, can be happy with a handful of people, not just one, or The One.) And statistically, that's true, and based on probability, and everything else I can learn in all of my math classes, it's completely true.

But that's not what I believe, no matter how much of a mathematician I feel like I may be.
Because more than anything, student, writer, child, sister, I am a lover. A lover of love. And I don't believe that love is at random. I think love makes us better people, but people change, and our needs change. What you needed from a companion in high school and college are different from what you need as an adult with a job and a family.

Love is big and magnificent, and more than I can hope to talk about all at once. But I'll end with another quote, this time from Helen Keller, "I believe in the immorality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings."

And of course, just like usual, I figure out where the line came from. Just as I've figured everything else out. But the line itself was never the point.

Quotes on Living

I think today is a quotes day on here.
This is kind of what I've been thinking about recently. And like I always believe, other people have been thinking these thoughts a lot longer than I have. Which is actually a really great thought - it means I'm not alone.

I want a guy that isn't like me and stuck in his head and writer-y, but understands me perfectly when I'm exactly like that.
I barely know what I want to do with my life, and I don't know everything that I don't want to do forever.
Life both incredibly excites, and absolutely terrifies me.

I'm just starting to realise (again) that I feel all of this, but it's okay, and good. I'm 21. I'm not supposed to have all the answers yet. And if I did, life would be so very dull.
Life is so complicated and complex and massive. I think I (and maybe everyone too) just need to chill - it all works out in the end.

"It was one of the best days of my life. A day during which I lived my life, and didn't think about my life at all." - Jonathan Safran Foer

You will find that it is necessary to let things go simply for the reason that they are heavy.

So this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that can be. -  The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. - J.K. Rowling

You were given this life because you were strong enough to live it.

I do/pin bunches of stuff like this on my Pinterest. Check it out if you're interested.

Have a good week!

The Stars and the Moon (Part 3)

   Audrey is in Hollywood. And she loves it. She loves the glamour of being a successful actress. She loves the heat, and the sunshine. She loves everything about it.

   But some days she feels a little lonely. So on the weekends, her and half a dozen of her closest girl friends go out to the bars and clubs to find love, if only just for the night.

   And then one night, something different happens. She finds a man, a beautiful man, with a beautiful smile and he can't take his eyes off of her. She sidles up to him and lets him buy her a drink, something sweet and purple. After a minute or two of half-shouted meaningless conversation, she takes the last step between them and presses her full lips against his. She can feel his smile and it drives her. She breaks away, breathless, and watches his face pulse with exctasy. After a moment she hooks her finger in the collar of his pretty button down shirt and drags him to the dance floor. 

   The next morning, she wakes up in his bed, happy and calm after a night's deep sleep. She stretches out, cat-like, taking up as much of the bed as she can, rousing him. He groans and raises his head.

   "Morning, Gorgeous." He has a british accent. She didn't notice that last night.

   Audrey pulls the sheet up, covering herself coyly. "Hey there." They smile at each other. "How did you sleep?"

   He turns over onto his back and pulls her on top of  him. He studies her golden green eyes a minute. "Really good." He smiles, "Yeah. Really good." She leans in to kiss him, her thick black hair obscuring his face.

   A few months later, Audrey and David, that was his name, David, are still seeing each other. He takes her out on dates to expensive restaurants and fancy shows. He hires a private jet to fly them away when they both get sick of the city. Like the spur of the moment trip to Italy. And Greece. And they had to stop over in Nice on the way back because David had a villa there that he needed to check in on. There were only going to stay a few nights, but the party there just kind of happened.

   Sometimes, when he wants to surprise her, he buys her things. She rarely asks for these things, but she always accepts them because they are exactly what she would have asked for if she had thought to ask for such things. Like the fur coat. It's light colored, snowy, to set off her dark hair, and it's made to look like snow foxen, but she would never have accepted it if it was real. She thinks. Or the car. That was really a sensible gift, hers had almost been falling apart, so it really did need replacing. Sort of. With a brand new Audi A4. But the townhouse was just sweet. It was their place. That he owned. But he let her decorate, which really made it theirs.

   But now it's a trip on the yacht. They dodn't really know where they are going, but she has just finished a shoot, so she took some time off and they're ending up in Spain. Or near Spain. And on one beautiful, clear night when they can see so many stars they can't breathe, David gets down on one knee and he asks, "My darling. Will you marry me."

   Audrey doesn't even have to think about this. "Okay!" 

   He stands up and pulls her into a hug and twirls her around. He sets her down and kisses her full on the mouth, beaming with pride of his new wife-to-be. Stealthily, he steps away for a minute while Audrey is admiring her new, shiny diamond ring and grabs a bottle of champagne. He pops the cork and pours two glasses. Holding one out to her he says, "To us."

   They cheers and drink. Neither can taker their eyes off the other. David sets down his glass and asks, "Where to next?" 

   Audrey thinks this over a minute. She peers at him from behind her golden bubbles and says, "Bejing," with a coy smile.

   David smiles back at her. "Sounds perfect." He walks over to her and puts her glass down, pressing her against the side of the boat and kissing her, wrapping his arms around her back, pulling her to him tightly.

   And the years go by with an unmatched level of superfluous splendor. Audrey and David want for nothing. 

   And it never changes. And it never grows.

   One day, Audrey wakes in a king sized bed with egyptian cotton sheets wearing a silk teddy and turns to her beautiful, rich husband. But he isn't lying next to her. She is alone in her extravagance.

Which was just as well, because on this morning, a morning like almost every other, she does not feel alone. And that is different. Last night she dreamt of the men she had met in her life, of two in particular, two men that had promised her many things, adventure and passion and knowledge and hope and strength, and all the things she had been sure she didn't want. Or that she would figure out on her own. She dreamt of the men who could not have promised her a yacht, or trips around the world, or the bed she was currently occupying alone. She thinks of all this and her eyes started to water for all that she had given up on dreaming of.

   But right then, David walks in to the room. Audrey looked up as the door opened, trying to wipe at her eyes so he would not see. But he went straight to the bathroom, and didn't glance her way. As the door shut behind him again, she put her head in her hands and let herself sob as she had never allowed herself before. In between sobs she managed to choke out, "I'll never have the moon."

   And Audrey knew that was the one thing she had always truly needed.

The Stars and The Moon (Part 2)

Audrey is stopped at a gas station.
She's not entirely sure where she is anymore. She's been driving from Middle-of-Nowhere, Pennsylvania to Hollywood for the past week. Just driving and driving and driving, and when she can't drive anymore, she pulls over to the nearest shitty motel, gets the best room, available or not, and stays the night. She never meets anyone when she does this, not even the sad looking gentlemen that give her the keys to the rooms. These are just temporary stops, and these people don't matter. Not when she's on her way somewhere so much bigger.
She drives an old, beautifully kept up '65 Mustang, although it's now less convertible than it used to be. But Audrey doesn't like driving with the top down, it messes up her hair.

With a grumble and a sputter and a spurt, a beat up old Harley pulls into the gas station with Audrey, right into the other side of her pump. She glares at the bike and the man straddling it, clad in an equally beat up leather jacket - bikes make too much noise.
But this man doesn't look the way she think's he'll look. He's not overweight with a solid beer gut hanging out, under the leather, he actually looks pretty fit. And when he pulls off his helmet and his sunglasses, he might not be as clean shaven as Audrey usually likes her men, but his scruff adds something to his piercing blue eyes. The eyes that have caught her gaze. And hold it. And just when Audrey feels like she can't hold a gaze that intense anymore, he winks at her and turns away. She shakes her head, trying to rid the feeling of being analyzed and grabs her purse out of her car. She turns back to the pump... and stops. There's no credit card slot. Audrey looks around at the other pumps - everything is old fashioned. She takes her keys and locks the car, heading into the mini-mart.

Audrey walks inside and waits in line behind a family of five. Or is it seven? The two rowdy kids "hiding" in the ice cream section seem like they fit. She taps her foot in impatience.
   "Anxious to get back on the road?" a voice behind her said. A nice voice, soft but deep, not too scratchy. She turns around to face Motorcycle Man. She crosses her arms across her chest.
   "Yeah. And? I don't want to be stuck in god-knows-where." She turns back around.
   "Enid."
She turns around again, already frowning. "My name's Audrey, but thanks." She gives him a quizzical look and moves to turn again.
   "Well, it is lovely to meet you, Audrey, but I was telling you where you are. Place's called Enid."
   "Oh. Stellar."
   "You weren't looking to end up here, were you?" The motorcycle man asks. He is completely aware of how seriously Audrey's shutting him down.
   "I'm not here at all..." She turns around to face him. He smiles another breath-taking smile. But she doesn't huff or try to break eye contact. She chews her words a minute before she says them. "I'm just passing through. Headed to Hollywood."
   "You looking to be a big fancy actress?" He shifts his weight, and it brings him closer to her. She doesn't step back.
   "Of course I am. I've got everything I need." She flips her hair over her shoulder and smiles a heartbreaking smile right at him. He's pleased, but generally unfazed. Audrey hopes it will sink in, but it doesn't.
   "NEXT!" Audrey turns around to see the cashier yelling at her. The family of five to seven has left. Possibly a while ago. She smiles at the cashier, but doesn't say anything, and finishes her transaction quickly.

Outside, Audrey is getting back in her car when Motorcycle man leans into her window. She jumps at the sudden closeness.
   "Yes?" She tries to frown at the impossible blue eyes.
   "Would you be interested in taking a ride with me?"
Audrey thinks for a minute, and the minute stretches on, and on, until it isn't just a minute anymore, but something larger and too impossible to be real. She feels everything that could have been in that minute that wasn't a minute.
   She hears herself ask his name, and he would tell her it was Timothy, like the Greek word for "cherished." She will tell him that's interesting and, after some grudging, that she likes it. She sees herself agree to a ride with him, step out of her car and would expertly straddle a motorized beast she is unfamiliar with and ride off with the man named Timothy. She sees the times of fun and lazy days and weeks she would spend with him, if she says yes.
   But she also thinks of the life she's already driving to, the one she has planned and perfected. This life she has dreamed of for years and has worked toward relentlessly.
   She sees what she thinks will be, if she were to say yes to this man with the piercing blue eyes. They will ride off together, and it would be happy, for a time, but as she always had, she will get restless again, demand more than her partner can give her, and leave another painful wake behind her as she storms out again.
   So at the end of the minute that isn't a minute, she says, "I don't even know your name."
   Without hesitation, he sticks his hand inside her car. Audrey takes it. "My name's Timothy, like the Greek word for cherished." But Audrey notices that, despite the heat of the day, his hand isn't sweaty, or dry, or calloused, but it's just right. She feels an intense shiver of recognition and drops his hand. "Nice to meet you. I really must be heading out."
   "Wait." Timothy says, "Not even for a day? Not even an hour?"
Audrey thinks, but slowly starts to shake her head no. "I have a life I need to be living."
   Now Timothy sticks his whole head in the car, right next to Audrey's. She barely has space to move away from him. "But you don't understand. I could give you stars, and the moon, and the open highway, and a river beneath your feet. I'll give you days full of dreams if you travel my way and a summer you can't repeat." He's breathing on Audrey, but it feels nice, like a familiar scent. They are absurdly close for two almost complete strangers. "I could give you night full of passion and days of adventure, no strings, just warm summer rain."
   But no matter the inexplicable closeness, she doesn't know this man, so as he looks into her eyes, full of hope and promise, all she says is, "You know, I'd rather have champagne."
   He pulls his head out of the car as she starts it, and just as he's clear, Audrey and her Mustang flee off toward the California sunset.

Thanks for reading!

The Stars and The Moon (Part 1)

Audrey and Jet lay together on the bank of a river. They have a blanket out underneath them and that is all. Their clothes trail a path to the river, some had been flung father off, toward the trees. But now Audrey lays her head against his chest, an arm trailed across his chest. Jet's hand traces nonsense patterns onto her olive skin.
"It's so warm." Audrey lifts her head, peering down at him.
Jet props his head up with his free hand and gazes back. "That's what blue skies will do for you."
She smiles, lighting up her face with peace. "I wish it was always like this."
"It can be," he says as he smoothes a dried piece of hair back on her head. The water dried it stiff and it flips right back into place, just between her green-golden eyes.
She laughs at him. "It could never be like this. Not always."
"And why not?"
"Because this is fantasy, this isn't real life." She sits up, and ties her half-dried hair into a messy bun.
"Why do you think this is not real? You are really here, right now, with me." He props himself up on an elbow and reaches over to her, tracing a hand from her shoulder down to her curvy waist, pulling her back down to him.
She brushes his hand away.
"What does it matter that I'm here now? What about tomorrow? And the next day? Let alone next week or next year. You have no future."
He finally sits up, crossing a leg beneath himself. "I don't need a future. I have the present, right now, and that's what matters. How I spend it, and who I spend it with. I'd like that to be you." He tries to turn her toward up, but again, she ignores this.
She stands up without looking at him. "I need more than that." She walks off, pulling on her clothes as she finds them.
Jet sits defiantly on the blanket. "You want assurance, you don't need it. Be open to this, to life, to what it has to offer."
She pulls her shirt over her head but it gets stuck on the bun. She struggles for a minute and the shirt slips down past her face. Jet smiles, but she just fumes. "I know what this life has to offer me, and it's a lot better than some stupid picnic out in the middle of nowhere!" Her words echo in the silence of the woods.
"I want a plan. Something solid... Something you can't give me." After a moment, she grabs her shoes and walks back up the dirt path. Jet huffs and gets dressed, pulling on his jeans and rolling the rest into the picnic blanket. He hurries after her.

Audrey tries the handle on the car. It's locked. She stands for a minute, looking around, unsure. She hears Jet coming up the path and turns to walk back up to the street.
Jet comes out of the trees and sees her walking up the small hill. He drops the blanket on the hood of his car and runs toward her. He grabs her arm and she pulls away, walking quickly. He runs in front of her, grabbing her shoulders.
"I'll give you... I'll give you the stars. And the moon. I'll give you a soul, to guide you. I'll give you a promise, a promise that I'll never leave." He reaches up and traces the line of her jaw. He smiles and drops his hand. "I'll give you hope." He runs his fingers through her hand and squeezes. "Hope to bring out all the life inside you. And a strength that will help you grow. I'll give you truth, and a future that's... twenty times better than any... Hollywood plot."
She looks him in the eye and pulls her hand away, instead resting it on top of his heart, his smooth, warm skin beneath her painted fingernails. Audrey shakes her head and says, "I'd rather have a yacht." She walks past him, trailing her hand across his chest as she leaves.
He stands, unmoving. A sadness comes over his eyes and he turns. But she's already gone.

Thanks for reading!

Why Today is Really Tuesday

Today is Wednesday.
But really today should be Tuesday.

Specifically, it should be last Tuesday, because that's when I was supposed to post something here.

And I didn't.

I thought about it that night... but I stayed up (unreasonably) late doing math homework. And by that time it was Wednesday.

And I thought about it last Wednesday, and I thought, "I'll write something for yesterday, and something for it being late..." and I didn't.

And that just kept happening. I kept meaning to write something to make up for missing, but then it just kept getting worse, and I kept not writing anything.

Now, a week later, I feel I have to apologize, if not to my small but lovely fan-base (consisting mainly of my mother and friends that I have pestered into reading these), then to myself. I started this as something to do, some way to write when I was not required by classes and professors to write, because it is something I enjoy doing. But I don't know if I need to apologize, I just need to explain.

It's the kind of instance where I have a plethora of reasons for not writing something these past two Tuesdays.
I stayed up late doing math homework.
I was busy with Greek Week, and the obligations that entails.
I was busy with my actual writing classes.
... I was busy making up for work I had forgotten about in my writing classes.
I was snowed in at my friend's house because of Nemo...

I could go on, but the reasons aren't reasons. They're excuses, and I know that. So when I realized that another Tuesday had gone by and I still had posted nothing to make up for my misstep, I started thinking about why exactly I had stalled out in the first place.
It wasn't like I was too busy every moment of every day between now and my first missed Tuesday - I had thought about it. I had opened the website. I had started hand-writing a piece. I had started a piece on my site, but never published it, never even finished it. I could say that nothing I write is ever done, but this was different. I never even wanted to post it. And I know why, too.

I never wanted to post it because it wasn't the real reason I hadn't written anything.
So as I walked to church this morning because it is Ash Wednesday, and whatever my scruples are with God, it is something I have always done, and probably always will do, I thought about how I've been feeling. Really feeling. It's something I've talked about to my friends at school, and briefly to my parents, but it isn't something I have talked about here.

I am graduating.
I am a second semester senior who has only two major, and three minor courses to finish out her schoolwork and get her bachelors.
I'm also a Screenwriting major. And that means there is a binary of what I do after I graduate. I move to Los Angeles and try to work and write and sell movies, or I don't. Now the "don't" outcome seems pretty vague, and that's just how I've been feeling about it. There are options I have, things I can do, but I just don't know what they are.

So every time the topic of graduating comes up, or my parents call and ask what I want to do for graduation dinner (because, yes, they do need to make reservations in February for May...) I start to panic a little. Or maybe more than a little.
It is just getting to the point where my friends are starting to figure out what they're doing, and how they're doing it and it makes me feel even more lost. Like my friends who are going to grad school are starting to hear back from schools (which is exciting and wonderful and congratulations to all of you!). Or my friends who aren't going to grad school, and are making plans for where they're moving and trying to find jobs (again, congratulations and good luck!).
And then there's me. Me, the crazy person who has options and dreams and goals and support (really, truly endless support) and I have not done A THING about what I do after I graduate (which, by the way, is less than 100 days away). It's not that I don't know what I want to do.  I want to move back to London and work there and live there and have it be perfect. But I would be moving there, alone, and finding a flat alone, and trying to make ends meet and find a job and be happy, alone. So I don't know if that's what I want to do right now. Or I want to be a math tutor, or substitute teach and be a para at my mom's school, or something. Anything. The world is my freaking oyster. And I don't know what to do with all that.
Sometimes even, the support is overwhelming. My parents love me and want me to be happy, and know that when I want something, I'll find a way to make it happen. And it is lovely and encouraging, but I don't know what to do with that either.
There's one other thing. It's like something we're learning in my probability class, combination theory, that there are any number of outcomes and the desired sample space is k. So in my case k is equal to one. There are hundreds of options, and I have to choose one. That if I choose one, that means I don't choose any other outcome. And that when I choose one thing to do, I want it to be the right one.

And now that I have sufficiently over-thought all of this, and how I am a terrible student/friend/housing person, I would like to crawl under the desk I am sitting at and just wait for it all to not matter.
But I know that's not how it works. So maybe graduating, and being an adult and all that is the simple fact that when it all gets to be too much to handle and we want to hide under our covers and wait for our mommies to make it better with some soothing words and hair stroking and maybe some chocolate chip cookies, we actually take a moment, a step back, and a deep breath. A deep breath to hold in the shuttering sobs of panic, and just keep working, knowing that a weekend, or a break, or something will come and that somehow, at the end of the day, it will be okay.

So really, I didn't write because I was too paniked to write, which, of course, means that I should have done all of this two Tuesdays ago.

Thanks for reading.

The Doctor Lands in Acathi - by Momma Sauk

My mother writes fan fiction... I'm so proud.

One of my favorite T.V. shows is Doctor Who. He is a Time Lord and travels the Universe. On a recent episode The Doctor travelled to a faraway galaxy. His time machine, the TARDIS, went out of control when it encountered a meteor tempest.  This made the Tardis flounder in space. Suddenly he landed on a place he had never been before, the planet of Acathi. He found that Acathi is a primitive land. Some parts were scorched and shriveled because the planet has two suns and little water.  While he was exploring, he met the Baders, some of the natives from a local tribe. Their dwellings were inconspicuous as they took advantage of the cracked earth to hide in. The Baders were very friendly to The Doctor because they had heard tales of him from other visitors. The Baders invited The Doctor to dine with them. A banquet was served where there was a cornucopia of strange new foods and drinks.  Since he was ravenous from all his exploring, he eagerly began to eat. During the meal the head chief, Navi, explained how they had trounced a rival tribe in a big battle with few casualties on their side. One of the strategies they used was decoy warriors. Navi was able to articulate how they won the battle through hand gestures. Although The Doctor enjoyed his visit, it was time to go and with the familiar sounds of squealing, off he went in the TARDIS.

It started as a Word of the Day practice for her eighth graders, but it's so wonderful, I had to share.

Hope you like it! Momma Sauk might even make another appearance...

The Life that Turns Us

This week, I'm scared. I feel like I am scared most of the time these days, but today, I feel particularly nervous. I think I'd like to go to this program in Northern Ireland this summer for a playwriting program. Now, this isn't really what I want to be doing, (I think) but it sounds interesting, and like a great opportunity. And I need a writing sample. And I write here, so I think I want to do a writing sample for them on this blog. It would also be a link to other writing samples of mine. So I think it works. But it's nerve-racking. I even think I know what I would like to write, or at least where I'd like to get started. I have two ideas, and I think I might explore both of them.

The first is a script, cause that's how I do.

The second is a short story.

Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.

The Journey Homeward

So, I have something done for today. Really, I do. But I finished it today, and it's a drawing, so it's not online yet. And I do sincerely apologize.
I don't know what people expect when they come here, but I hope I have given the impression that nothing should be expected. I like to think of myself as a creator, through many mediums, some of which I have shown here in weeks past. (And even before the Tuesdays Project.)
I started writing because it fit with how I thought about things. Once I started to understand how it worked, and how I could use it, I started to use writing to figure my thoughts out. For me, thoughts are like strings, hanging in the air. When I write, I can pull those strings from the air and make a tapestry out of them. Then let them all go, and start again. Each time making a new picture, until I feel like I understand what's in my head.
Sometimes I write fiction because there are other people, and other stories in my head. Sometimes I use music because my thoughts need a certain direction, and I love drawing inspiration from other types of creative outlets. Sometimes, I draw because my thoughts don't have words right away. The words usually come in later, but sometimes I want more than words. This week's work is just like that. It started with an object, then lines, then it became a fuller picture, then words found their way into it, just as they always do.
So I hope I have left you all on the edge of your seats. The picture will be up as soon as I can manage it, and in the meantime, check out some of my other drawings, writings, musings and such.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any suggestions/requests/anything, leave me a comment!

Salt Stains on Snow Boots

I'm back at school now. And it's winter here. Like actual snow-on-the-ground winter. Which is cool cause it is not really winter in California. More like our rainy season... and it isn't even raining again until February. So it's nice. It's nice to have winter again.
It's nice to see all my friends again, especially because I haven't seen most of them in a while. It's nice to be going back to something familiar that has been home for me for the last three and a half years. Even when I've been away, it's a place I called home, and felt connected to. Something I knew I could always come back to.
Now that I'm back, it's not the way I left it. Which I expected.
But it doesn't feel the way I expected either. Which is... interesting.
I couldn't put my finger on it, but I've realized things were different. My classes will be different (I'm a senior now, and I will have senior classes, rather than the junior classes I left taking...), my living situation will be different, my job is different, the school is different, even my friends are different.
Not that I have different friends, but of course I do have new ones, it is that the people I have been close with have changed themselves. They've had months to change, more than a year really. I don't think anyone is a completely different person, we aren't in the part of our lives where we can change so drastically in such a (relatively) short period of time. It's like when aunts and uncles say you've grown so much, but you don't notice it because you see yourself everyday and it's not like you change overnight. I feel like the Aunt. There were little things that changed and shaped my friends over the time I was gone. And now that I'm back I see what they've added up to. They're all better people for it.
Just because my friends are different doesn't mean I love them any less. It's just different. The habits and rhythms we had when I left are gone, but the people I love are still here, and new things can be made; new habits, new rhythms, new traditions even.
The thing that throws me the most is that I am different too. In this case, I'm the kid. I bet my friends see that I've changed, maybe they haven't noticed how yet, but I think they see it. On the other hand, I don't.
Or didn't. Not until I start thinking about who I was when I left here for London more than a year ago.
Like how I wanted my life to be... I wanted to move to Los Angeles and write and make movies there. But now that I've done that a bit, I realized I want to write more than anything, but not there. I didn't know how much I loved London, and especially how it would hold a place in my heart, presumably forever. I didn't know how hard it would be to be away. And I really didn't know how easy it was to be gone. I know that sounds strange, but what I've noticed most about coming back is that this place doesn't feel like home anymore. I know it will always hold an incredible significance for me, but I've spent a large portion of being away worrying about what happens when I graduate, that I'll be leaving home and venturing into the unknown, the "not-home."
But now that I'm back and it doesn't feel like that, it gives me a little hope. Hope that I might not be venturing into the not-home, maybe I'm just searching for the next one.
And what I learned most about being away is that home is not one place, but anyplace.
Also that my friends love me no matter where I am.

Thanks for reading!

Check out next week - a drawing about going home, and finding home.

The Loveliest of Our Realities

It's a playlist piece. Not sure if that's a thing. But it is now.
(The playlist is at the bottom.)
Really, the music is optional, it's just what I was listening to when I was writing.

Getting Into You - Relient K
I like this song. I'm pretty sure they're a Christian band, but that doesn't really matter to me...
"Do you know what you're getting yourself into?"
"I'll love you with my life."
Definitely could be about Christ.
But I like to think of it just about love. Like how I think about religion, it's not about what god I believe in, it's about love. It's always about love.

Whippin Wind - Robinella
It's about tenderness. How we treat others and how we want to be treated. I know it sounds like a childish notion. But really. We all want to be loved. Deep in our hearts that's what all of us crave. It's no sign of weakness, it is our humanity. To deny that is to deny the fact we have bones, or flesh. We all want to be loved.
"One of them loses, one of them wins."
Yet sometimes we don't have the notion to treat others like that. Somehow in the cycle of who and how we are, hate seeps into love, and poisons it. Yet we think nothing of it. And if we do think of it, how hard to we try to right the wrongs?
"Singing songs of her happiness."

Black Mamba - The Academy Is...
"If you don't like it, you can take a long walk off of the shortest pier you can find."
I mean I do this, write, and want to be loved for it. I don't want to be adored, or famous, or well known really, but I don't want anyone to read what I write and hate it, or hate me by association. Not that everyone on the internet is reading these, but I'd like to think I share a piece of my soul when I write, either like this or in a story. It's personal. It's always personal.

Kiss Me - Ed Sheeran
"Kiss me like you want to be loved."
I know I sound like a little girly girl when I write this, but I do think that love is what makes our world what it is. We would not be anything without it and I don't know if enough people give it that much credit. And if I haven't been clear enough, I think it deserves it.
"I'm cold as the wind blows, so hold me in your arms."
I was watching a YouTube video today and she asked the question, would you want to know how a relationship ends just as it's beginning? I thought about it for a while and as I wrote this, I realized I knew my answer. I wouldn't want to know. More than likely it won't end well. And I never want that to stop me. I would rather be heartbroken than not give love freely and as much as I can. I would rather be too trusting and taken advantage of than not be open and expectant that the world is full of good people who want to do good things.
Society is filled with things that I don't really know if they make sense, and I'll get into that later, but I think the one thing that is so true and straightforward you cannot deny it, is love. Any kind of love. But I'll end with a quote I find inspiring, heart-warming and -breaking, and mostly honest. It has given me hope when I have not seen it on my own, and I hope to share it with many and more people to do the same.
"True Love will triumph in the end - which may or may not be true, but if it's a lie, it's the most beautiful lie we have." - John Green


Thanks for reading!

Comment with suggestions for future topics. I have a lot of year to cover.

Check out next week - my thoughts on going back to school.

Tears As Snowdrops

I'm a writer, and this is how I normally write.

It's a stand alone piece, enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

PS Leave me a comment if you have suggestions/requests for a future post. :)

Check out next week - Playlist Blog forming my thoughts on life and love. (One of many times, I'm sure)