i know. i'm blushing.

I just found this:

I happened upon some of my old journal entries from many years back, during some of my darker days when just being alive was hard work, and this was one of the things I found.

It’s so strange and funny, and sometimes shocking, to read things written in the past. Because I don’t think I always realized what I was saying… how true and real the things I hoped for could be. How now, years later, I’d still be me, but be so different. That I’d have such a new view. That Me Now would be reading these words from a place that Me Then would have wanted to be. That it’s possible to grow. That those growing pains back then were just a part of the whole, long, messy process. They were a part of my “failing and continuing on anyway.” They were—in some terribly inconvenient and uncomfortable way—a part of my dream.

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Alice Cooper – “School’s Out”

School’s out. Finished the quarter. Happy with the work I did. Amazed at how much I learned. Thrilled to be done.

I always get “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper stuck in my head at this time of year. Cooper was once asked what the greatest three minutes of his life were. His response:

There’s two times during the year. One is Christmas morning, when you’re just getting ready to open the presents. The greed factor is right there. The next one is the last three minutes of the last day of school when you’re sitting there and it’s like a slow fuse burning. I said, “If we can catch that three minutes in a song, it’s going to be so big.” *

What’s funny is even after all these years, that feeling doesn’t change. Those last seconds, when you gather your bag, walk to the front, hand your exam to the professor, and then float as you push open the door of the lecture hall and walk into the sunlight… the release is unbelievable. And now, two days after my last exam, I keep getting that feeling of guilt for not using my time to catch up on reading, coupled with the surreal realization that there is no more reading to do.

Suddenly the things that were at the very bottom of the to-do list get promoted to the top. You never had time to do them before, and now they’re the most important things in front of you.

I like it a lot.

*I read that story here, which is the most reliable source in the world, I know. But it’s still a good story.

I’ve got this list telling me I should be packing. There’s a big mound of empty boxes next to me, waiting to be filled. I’ve stacked them up into a (somewhat) orderly pile so they won’t be in our way. Maybe I shouldn’t have; they’re a little too easy to ignore when they’re out of the way.

Our stuff gets picked up and shipped to Washington this Friday. We hit the road Saturday morning. I’ve gone over the schedule so many times that it’s almost lost its realness. It’s as if I’m just telling a story.

I can’t imagine what it’s going to feel like to arrive in our new city. Our little home in Salt Lake City will be behind us for good.

I was the only one on the road for miles. No lights shone before or behind me, only the stars above and the glowing half-moon. No lamp posts lit my way ahead on the curving canyon road, only my own cockeyed headlights.

Death Cab’s “Passenger Seat” began to play (listen to it in my player over there on the right), and I rolled my window down. Cold, night air poured in. I turned on the heater. I know it might seem ridiculous, but I couldn’t ignore the necessity of an open window as I drove through the deep night in such a tranquil canyon with music like that playing. And since the autumn mountain air is a bit nippy, a blowing heater takes just the right edge off. It’s a method my roommate and I perfected on stressful college nights when we needed a release. Call me crazy, but try it sometime and you’ll understand why I do it.

There was no stress tonight, though. I felt deliciously content. Happy. Beautiful dark mountains, changing seasons, the freedom of a full tank of gas, and the irreplaceable feeling of someone waiting for me at home.

Michael Stipe was telling me about how he’ll take the rain as I drove down the highway and approached my exit. His voice flooded my car. It filled up every possible space, rushed into every corner, to the point of bursting. Nearly.

It was quite possibly a perfect night. The ride up the mountain was just as refreshing as the ride down, as was the company in between.

It’s good for me to change my rhythm every now and again.

Remember being a kid and riding in the car with your friends, the windows down, singing along with your favorite song at the top of your lungs? How come we don’t do that as adults? I hope, many years down the road, after much more life has happened to me, I still find occasion to sing at the top of my lungs with friends in my car.

I can’t for the life of me remember who first introduced me to The Postal Service, which is weird because I usually vividly remember stuff like that. I do know that it was in college. It must’ve been at least by my third year because I’ve got this strong memory of driving north up University Avenue, roommate Star in the passenger seat, windows down, stopped at the light by our sophomore-year apartment, and The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” playing on my stereo. It’s a nice relaxing memory. I think it might’ve been spring time, but it may simply be that the feeling of the memory is so refreshing that I associate it with spring. I don’t know.

But in any event, I love this band’s music. I particularly love the song over there in my sidebar at the moment, “Brand New Colony.” (Check out the lyrics here.) The instant the song starts, I can’t help but smile. The intro reminds me of playing classic old video games as a kid, sitting Indian style in front of the living room TV. And the rest of the song manages to capture all the ultra-shmoopy feelings of love (which I’m a total sucker for) without ever getting sickly syrupy. Or maybe you think it is sickly syrupy, but you have to at least admit that they definitely don’t resort to any overused cliches. I love that.

I’ll be the fire escape that’s bolted to the ancient brick where you will sit and contemplate your day.

Maybe this resonates so much with me because I’ve always wanted to be able to climb out my window onto a fire escape and just sit, like Holly Golightly. Who knows.

I can also understand the desire to escape the “tethers of this scene” and the responsibilities of life, armed with nothing and no one except for the one you love most… setting out on an adventure to start fresh and new, full of hope and away from life’s cynics (which, unfortunately, sometimes includes me). I suppose we all probably could go for an escape every now and then, and let “the sun… heat the grounds under our bare feet.”

Sounds like a plan. I may not have a fire escape, but I do have a patio perfect for bare feet and sunshine. Out I go!

I sometimes let myself get too nostalgic, and it puts me in this weird haze.

It’s like the feeling when you’ve played a video game for way too long. Your mind feels submerged in that other world, and all you can think about is Donkey Kong and Ditty racing through the mines in a cart.

Nostalgia is like that to me. Reality becomes blurry. These dusty, warped, old memories mix with the facts of present-day life, and I’m left in this funky haze. It’s weird.

And then I’m caught up in this need to reconnect with random people from my past. I just spent the last fifteen minutes looking for an old friend online. Who knows why. I haven’t talked to her since high school. I just felt like I wanted to make sure she was okay. Felt like I wanted her to know that I remembered her. But I couldn’t find her.

It’s weird when people disappear. She’s not even on facebook. Who’s not on facebook? Even my dad is on facebook.

Of course, in this strange, foggy state, I magically find my yearbook open on my lap. (Don’t judge… I know it’s crazy that I still have that thing, and even crazier that I know where it is.) I sift through these amusing old pictures and sappy messages from classmates who have all disappeared. Weird weird weird.

“Keep in touch!” “I’m going to miss you!” “I know you’ll do well.” “You owe me like $1,000,000 in gas money.” (And I probably did, actually.)

Is it pathetic that it makes me feel a little blue? I don’t even know why I feel blue. I love my life now, and I loved my life then (well, I at least love the memories), so I don’t know why nostalgia makes me feel a little melancholy.

Maybe I just let myself soak it up for too long.

I know that by the time February rolls around a lot of people are aching for summertime, but I’m loving this winter.  I’m hoping for a new, thick blanket of snow any time now.

There’s something magical about a snowy night to me. Maybe it’s because the the feeling of snow stuck to my eyelashes is fused in my memory to the hopeful anticipation of canceled school. All I know is there’s something simultaneously soothing and mysterious about the night sky being washed pink. I adore the quiet patter of flakes landing on the ground punctuated by the distant sound of snow plows grinding against the asphalt. Ah, is there anything better?

I did a quick perusal of Flickr and dug up these lovelies.  I love how a snowy night has a way of making the noisy places in our world quiet…

…and making the already-quiet places in our world positively silent.

It’s like the world is holds its breath.

What is it about a heaping spoonful of cookie dough that makes even the most stressful of days feel surmountable?

Maybe that sentiment is symptomatic of some unhealthy relationship with food festering in my subconscious.

But maybe it’s so good at relaxing me because it triggers fond memories of those carefree sleepover days, when Leigh and I would pack up all our worldly possessions, make a fort out of the the living room swivel chairs, and settle in for a night of unharnessed giggling, M.A.S.H. fortune-telling, and watching “Boy Meets World” or “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” (which actually did scare me). The night would of course be incomplete without a tube of Nestle cookie dough.

Or maybe I like it because it’s just so stinkin’ delicious.

Whatever. All I know is it does the trick.

Here are some things I’ve noticed this past week, in no particular order:

1. I’m never too old for a Cinnamon Toast Crunch breakfast, and I’m never too far removed from college life to crave a bowl of Ramen noodles.
2. You know those packets of apple cider mix?  You know how when you rip one open, some stray powder escapes and swirls around in the air?  It seems that smell induces instant nostalgia.  I’m back in a Connecticut winter.  Ice skating on the pond in the woods behind the Wirz’s house.  With my brother.  The ice creak-cracking as he shovels off the heavy snow.  I’m on hockey skates, NOT figure, thankyouverymuch.  Frozen-red fingers and toes.  The hot, sweet taste of cider thawing me from the inside out.  Blowing the steam from my mug onto my face.  It’s amazing to experience those feelings again all while standing at my kitchen sink.
3. When I ask Bryant to pick up a gallon of milk at the store, he will always come home with 2%.  He will also come home with much more exciting groceries than I would’ve found.  It’s definitely more fun when he does the shopping.
4. Little kids are cool because however timid they may seem, they’re usually pretty convinced that they can learn how to do anything.  And they will ask you to teach them.
5. The terms “feminine” and “masculine” are completely useless.  They’re stupid, completely subjective, and (largely) arbitrary words with no good definition.  I’m removing them from my lexicon.
6. It’s actually pretty easy to avoid subjects I don’t want to talk about.  I wish I had realized that a long time ago.  Could’ve been really useful.
7. The internet is a great time vacuum—a black hole of productivity that takes control of my consciousness and prevents me from being useful. (It’s also a convenient scapegoat for wasted time.)

“Never is a Promise” by Fiona Apple:

You’ll never see the courage I know
Its colors’ richness won’t appear within your view
I’ll never glow the way that you glow
Your presence dominates the judgments made on you

But as the scenery grows, I see in different lights
The shades and shadows undulate in my perception
My feelings swell and stretch; I see from greater heights
I understand what I am still too proud to mention – to you

You’ll say you understand, but you don’t understand
You’ll say you’d never give up seeing eye to eye
But never is a promise, and you can’t afford to lie

You’ll never touch these things that I hold
The skin of my emotions lies beneath my own
You’ll never feel the heat of this soul
My fever burns me deeper than I’ve ever shown – to you

You’ll say, Don’t fear your dreams, it’s easier than it seems
You’ll say you’d never let me fall from hopes so high
But never is a promise and you can’t afford to lie

You’ll never live the life that I live
I’ll never live the life that wakes me in the night
You’ll never hear the message I give
You’ll say it looks as though I might give up this fight

But as the scenery grows, I see in different lights
The shades and shadows undulate in my perception
My feelings swell and stretch, I see from greater heights
I realize what I am now too smart to mention – to you

You’ll say you understand, you’ll never understand
I’ll say I’ll never wake up knowing how or why
I don’t know what to believe in, you don’t know who I am
You’ll say I need appeasing when I start to cry
But never is a promise and I’ll never need a lie

I dig the raw broodiness of this song.  In some twisted way, I sometimes wish I could be this internally angsty.  But it’s never worked for me.  I can’t keep it in.  …Almost always.

I used to have the most amazing version of this song.  It was on a mix a friend in high school gave to me… Renee gave me a lot of good music that year.  Anyway, it was Fiona singing with this gorgeous flowing piano in the background, and that was it.  Simple and not overproduced.  My CDs got stolen a few years ago and I haven’t been able to find that version since.