this time of year

[all song lyrics: "this time of year," better than ezra]

"well there's a feeling in the air, just like a friday afternoon..."
the florida night is humid and sultry in mid-may. it's the kind of feeling that makes a girl feel like getting in trouble, and luckily for me, tonight's that kind of night. downtown music festival, my favorite band: the makings of a perfect spring night out. even though i have the ostensible supervision of one of my most rational friends, i know full good and well that a night like this is open to nothing but the best possibilities.

"there's your first car on the road and the girl you steal..."
he's undoubtedly too old for me. that much is obvious from the dog tags, the car keys, and the gigantic cans of foster's he holds in both hands. but that smile. this man - and he is DEFINITELY a man - is not boyfriend material. good thing that's not what i'm out for. with my suddenly extraneous buddy in tow, i make my way to the front of the crowd, right up there by the stage, and right up to the edge of his crew. "hey javier! we need more BEER!" he yells, then turns and looks at me. "oh. hey."

trying very hard not to blush, i take a look at those amazingly gray eyes and say, "hey yourself." head up, chest out, smile and sell it. this just got a LOT more interesting.

"well, i know there's a reason to change..."
"what's your name, hon?" i tell him something that sounds right. i mean, not like it matters tonight. his name is clint, or chris, or something normal and solid. we chat about nothing for awhile, the crowd filling in around us. just then, the guitars start, the lights go up, and the show starts. within five minutes, the sailors around us are drunkenly slam-dancing to the dulcet tones of alterna-pop, something i didn't realize was possible until now. the show is amazing, as always.

"seems like it's always understood this time of year..."
ah, the slower songs. the navy pilots may actually stop chucking beer cans at the stage for a few minutes. no, wait; there goes another one. full this time, too. great. i always wanted to smell like a brewery. i borrowed this shirt from my most sexually successful friend, too. oh well; that's why the good lord gave us washers, i guess. but this girl's got some talents, and her wardrobe's a large part of those talents. the shirt's helping me, too. clint-or-chris can't take his eyes off me. heh. awesome. i have no idea what happened to my buddy; he got swallowed up by the mosh pit twenty minutes ago.

and that's when i feel it. i look to my right, and with no provocation whatsoever, this amazingly beautiful man has his arm around my waist. oh, glory. it worked. this NEVER works for me. and he's leaving it there. oh, man. if he only knew... and that's why he'll never know exactly who i am.

"so go on, let it be, when there's a feeling coming over me..."
just like that, the show's over. i've got maybe twenty minutes to keep up the charade. as the crowds part, and javier starts yelling for clint-or-chris to head over to the bar for last call, he says to me with this delicious smile, "so you coming back tomorrow?"

i'm not, obviously. it's a two-hour drive between here and home. but he doesn't have to know that. "yeah, we'll see. i got a thing tomorrow."

"hey, that's cool. maybe i'll see you around sometime." and the kiss he finishes the word "sometime" with will resonate long after this night is over. right there, in front of hundreds of people, with no regard for anything. just me, this random stranger, the moonlight, the perfect moment. as he turns to go, he shoots that killer smile. "have fun tonight."

that's when i realize that my sweet, rational friend is staring at me, open-mouthed. "oh, my god. did you just do that?"

"yeah. i did, didn't i?" i feel just a little different in this moment than i did the moment before. more beautiful, more exotic, more... grown, i guess. oh yeah. this is the kinda night i like. i don't ever want to lose this feeling: the rock star, the trophy, the girl who's so beautiful and perfect that he has to kiss me right there. there's nothing in this world i want more.

we turn and head towards the meeting place. my dad's picking us up in ten minutes. eleventh grade just got a ton more interesting. and hell, it's almost summer. there'll be nothing but mugginess, moonlight, and time to kill. and i'll own every last second of it.

"yeah, you can feel it in the air, feelin' right this time of year."

a moment for something real [TRUE STORY]

this nice woman's name is michelle, and her baby girl has cancer. just awful. so ian has spearheaded a fundraiser campaign for their family. it's an awesome cause. so here's the link to the paypal campaign:

Click on monkey to donate...please help!

seriously, look at that face. she is one cute baby with a serious, serious problem. this is just about the worst thing that can happen to a family, so if you have anything to give, this is a good cause. thanks.

unfettered nostalgia

oh, friends, today is a red-letter day in my personal universe. not only do i have a brand-new LEGIT DVD set of the little-watched MTV show the maxx, but i also received my long, long, LONG awaited DVD collection, legit as well, of probably my favorite show of all time, daria.

oh, my lord, it's perfect. all the things i loved in high school, which was probably the last time i really felt like myself, coming back to me at last. i feel like i had the reverse experience that most people had with youth. a lot of people i know were, if not abjectly miserable in high school, always felt a little off. i never felt off. i was totally confident, a raging ball of energy, possibility and good-natured cynicism. i had a clique of like-minded friends, i wasn't the target of teenage abuse, and i really felt like anything in the world was possible. when i look back on high school, the memories are all over-saturated with color and sunshine. i was on top of the freaking world.

it wasn't until college, and beyond, when things started unraveling. that's when the fierce assurance that the world was my oyster was punctured, when my confidence was shaken and challenged, and when i started to define myself by other people and other things. i lost sight of who i was independent of others. that, my dears, is a BAD, BAD sign. and that's how i got myself into the situation i'm in today. sigh.

but it's funny; now that law school is over and i'm making strides towards the life i used to imagine, i can feel the ol' mojo coming back. it's tempered a little by the hard knocks i've taken over time, to be sure, but i am starting to feel more like the girl i was before. that's the one thing that, while i will be in for some pain in the short term, will sustain me as i make my way into the great wide open, under them skies of blue. these little doses of nostalgia are fun, entertaining and interesting, to be sure. but they're also reminders that there was a time when i answered to only myself when it came to my dreams and my future. they're reminders that i can go back there again, that i can reclaim what i was and shape what i will be, no alternate influence required.

monday, monday [TRUE STORY]

another monday, another monday minute. incidentally, head over to ian's blog and read up on monkey. poor kid. throw some love her family's way; that's a hell of a thing.

1. How old do you act?
it totally depends on the day and the circumstances. i can be as staid and proper as a grandmother, or i can be thoroughly adolescent. there's no rhyme or reason.

2. As far back as you can remember, what did you want to be when you grew up?
i always wanted to be a lawyer. in 1985, there was a picture of four-year-old me in our local hometown paper, with my face buried in the code of alabama. there were some detours, but if all goes well with the bar exam, i'll have made it to my dream by october, when i'm scheduled to be sworn in.

3. If you were to write a book based on your life, what would the title be?
one step up. it's a springsteen reference.

4. What's something you do that's considered "childish" by most?
i hold grudges like a champion, on behalf of myself and on behalf of others. (a friend of mine has an ex-girlfriend who had better pray to every god she can think of that we never cross paths again, and their relationship ended 10 years ago this summer.) most people don't think that's a very adult thing to do.

5. The last question isn't a question. Write a story of a time of when you or someone you know overcame great adversity.
i've alluded to my mother's issues before. i view my life as a total triumph over weirdness, brokenness and tragedy in that department. i've been lucky. there's no doubt about it.

all falling into place

one week. one lousy week left in the bible belt. a mere seven days from now, i will be steadily rolling up the interstate, back to the place and people i love. i made the final arrangements today, and it's all locked down.

my reflections on my time here are complex, to say the least. that essay is coming for sure. but one thing is very clear: i cannot wait to get on with my life. i am thrilled beyond measure to tick down the seconds. so tonight, i'll raise a glass (or eight) with my beloved classmates and friends one last time. then i'll go home, pack some boxes, say my goodbyes, and drive out of here with the radio blasting and the sun shining all the way down the road ahead.

it's been a long time coming.

love means never having to say you're sorry

i've withheld saying much about this, mostly out of shock. i'm a little numb; charlottesville is a place i've loved in my life. i dig that town, and i've had amazing times there. there are connections in this debacle to the little mountain town where i started my college career. this one cuts kinda close to the bone.

i hate how everyone's always shocked when pretty white people are murdered. i wonder how many poor people, how many minorities, and how many other of the out-of-power folks in this world. but the fact that people really only care about this because a beautiful white girl was brutally murdered by a crazy thuggish fool doesn't change the fact that this girl was murdered by a crazy thuggish fool, one who once claimed to love her.

(note: i usually refrain from talking in these terms about people accused of crimes. the guy here admitted that he killed her; the only thing left to determine is what punishment he'll get and under what circumstances he killed her.)

intense, damaged people under the influence of intense, powerful emotions do intense and dangerous things. there's no doubt in my mind that no one ever saw something like this coming out of a well-heeled white boy like our hero. but his amazing athletic ability - he was one of UVA's leading scorers this year - provided pretty good cover, didn't it? no one thinks that privileged, successful people can possibly cave to base, animal instincts. but here we clearly have a guy with some problems. bad, bad problems. i've been angry, desperate and confused in my life, powerfully so, but i never crossed into that place that he went to.

let me be blunt: romantic violence is not the province of the poor, the uneducated and the addled. we tend to envision the victims of these crimes as either tragic inner-city single moms or tragic big-haired country-song caricatures. but here's the ultimate illusion-burster. this girl had everything: supportive family, brains, money, social status. these are supposed to be cultural failsafes. but one deranged, broken boy pierced every defense around this girl, and in the small hours of the morning, as he cracked, he rendered every advantage she had thoroughly, tragically and emphatically irrelevant.

i've been lucky, beyond lucky, in this life to have a long and intense education, amazing friends and caring family members. but i've seen some ugly things from people who said they loved me. i've suffered this. so many women, in similar station as me, have too. i've avoided serious consequences. but there's no special saving grace for anyone here. perhaps, just perhaps, seeing the naked brutality with which this girl's life was ended will jolt us as a nation into doing something about this.

maybe we'll watch out for our friends more now. and not just the girls, either. this isn't about protecting the supposedly weak here. this is about paying attention to those around us, and if we see some signs that the demons are getting the better of our friends, we'll say something before the darkness takes over. it's never an easy thing to do. my friends had no idea how to say something to me when things were weird in bad relationships. but this should show us once and for all that the consequences of doing nothing may be far, far greater than we could ever fear.

love doesn't mean blamelessness. but it should mean a modicum of safety. it should be positive, supportive, nourishing. no one should ever die for love. ever.

the en-sleek-ening: summing up [TRUE STORY]

well, thus ends the 30-day yoga boot camp. here are the stats:

classes purchased: 30
classes taken: 27 (missed one for a 101-degree fever, one for the end of law school, and today for the sunburn from hell)
pounds lost: 8-10, depending on the day. it's vacillated.

that's pretty much all i can give you for hard data. but man, oh man, do i feel so much better! i am supremely happy, i'm definitely toned up (especially in my arms), i can do a ten-breath shoulder stand without wobbling, and i'm a lot more flexible than i was at the start. i can put both my heels down when i'm in down dog, i can almost touch my chest to my legs in forward fold, and i feel like my old dancer-girl self again. this is one of the best things i've done for myself in a long, long time. i won't stick to the same strict regime i've followed this month, most likely, especially not with all the craziness to come in may, but i will keep taking classes, and i will work at least some sun salutations into my day as often as possible.

yoga. it works, bitches. :)

the waiting

the best word for the next ten days would be "interregnum." all i can do right now is wait. i am waiting for my living money to come, so that i can get my place, get my stuff ready, and get myself the hell out of here. there's so much waiting for me on the other side of a thousand miles of interstate: my friends, my city, my new life.

kinda, anyway. even though this'll be such a freeing, amazing summer, it's an interregnum in its own right. i mean, it's only a temporary lull in the stressful period of... tension... that is my personal life. as soon as the summer ends, i'll be right back where i started from, and the waiting will begin again. the timing has to be perfect. if it's not perfect, the whole thing will be botched.

but you know what? now, tonight, is not the time to focus on that. not even close. i'm going to pay attention to how wonderful it will be to pull up in front of that house, to walk into the open arms of my nearest and dearest, to lose myself in that old/new reality, no matter how temporary it will be. this will be so good, and so, so, SO worth the waiting.

time to play

it's another daily dose of reality questionnaire. let's go.

1 - How much would you have to be paid to eat a human cadaver's finger?
gaaaaaaah. at least eight figures.

2 - Describe the worst physical fight you've ever been in.
haha. i was four. i had a meek and mild friend who had been the brunt of one of those playground bullies in our kindergarten class, and that kind of unchecked aggression just would not stand. i marched up to him in the recess yard, shoved him down so hard he hit the ground like a sack of wet cement, and yelled, "you made [my friend] cry. don't do it again!" i retired from fighting undefeated.

3 - Name one song that if you never heard it ever again, you'd be thrilled.
oh, i hate so many songs. god, it's hard to pick. the latest thing that offended me to my very core is the new version of "one shining moment," y'know, that song they play at the end of the NCAA basketball tournament, done by jennifer what's-her-name-from-american-idol. good lord, she made me miss luther vandross. that's unacceptable.

4 - Describe the "drunkest" situation you've ever been.
ooh, it's either new year's eve/day this year, or the night before the NFC championship game this year. take your pick. we were all just BOMBED both of those nights. it's kind of miraculous we all survived and woke up in the places we intended to wake up. (and i still owe a debt of gratitude a MILE wide to our DD for new year's.)

5 - What's your biggest regret?
parts of my twenties. that's all i'll say.

destruction [TRUE STORY]

so as i sit here today, there's a giant pile of oil threatening the state i'm about to leave. my god, it's going to be the most brutal ecological disaster we've seen in a generation, if not worse. the beaches i've spent my life on are about to get besmirched beyond recognition. the wetlands that defend this state from hurricanes are about to get wiped out for perhaps a generation. the people who run the national oceanic and atmospheric administration are SCARED. there goes tourism, fishing, the two or three things these folks have left.

i don't know how to articulate my rage. we've been irresponsible for a long time about energy. ah, the insouciance of the american public when it comes to something that's not an immediate crisis. "eh, no big deal. we've got time to figure this out. hey, check out my new yukon denali SUV - it holds thirty-seven people AND their hockey gear!" well, guess what. time's up. miners are dying. oil slicks are about to destroy a large portion of the south. WAKE. UP. sweet lord, something has to be done. and you know what, people out there in the teabagger toddler-ocracy that is the american electorate? IT'S GOING TO SUCK.

things will not be freewheeling and fun the way that the supply-siders told you it would thirty years ago. what we need to do as a country (and by god, this goes for ALL areas of policy, not just this) is to figure out a long-term plan to a) figure out what's wrong, b) prioritize the problems, and c) go about SOLVING THEM. politics is not supposed to be glib, sound-bite friendly, or entertaining. it's supposed to be hard. it's supposed to be smart. it's supposed to take time. if we don't stop electing idiots to office, and i call 'em like i see 'em, we're never gonna get there. you'll end up with stupid, short-sided laws like the arizona "stop all the brown people" rule, that don't SOLVE ANYTHING.

maybe it's me. i am an educated, thoughtful person. (only child much?) but i have one expectation: THINK. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THINK. what's about to happen to my gulf coast is only the tip of the iceberg if we don't start thinking.

my broken hockey heart [TRUE STORY]

GAAAAAAAAH.

i must've used all my sports magic up with the saints this year. sigh. my beloved capitals. done. just awful. we're now a laughingstock. ovechkin's just a thuggish hack, apparently, compared to angelic north-american saint sidney. this is worse than the 2004 ALCS. hell, at least the yankees GOT to the ALCS that year.

but hey, the nationals are 12-10. yay.

postcard from the edge

oh, life. you have this nasty habit of intruding on all the fun i could be having. sigh.

anyway, sorry for the radio silence. it's the tail end of my last semester in law school, and there are these annoying tests they make me take. it's like we're all still pretending that i care. cute, eh? i finished one today, but i have two more before i can officially close the book on this joint and move forward to the next adventure. and don't worry. once i come though all of this, there'll be some really fun stories to tell. be patient with me - just a few more days...

the end is the beginning is the end

well, that's it. seven semesters. thirty-eight courses. august 2007 through today. i have completed law school. my last exam ended two hours ago. it's too soon for any real perspective, so i'll leave you all simply with what first came to mind:

dear law school,

thank you. for everything. you broke me down, you built me up again. you changed my mind, my outlook, my way of thinking. you demanded more of me than i ever could've imagined. i like to think i met the challenge head-on. but most of all, you gave me back the parts of myself i thought i'd lost forever. for that, i will be eternally grateful, whatever lies ahead.

with love and gratitude, magnolia

maybe other people are just so happy to get it over with and earn that they don't feel this way. to me, this was the most vital part of the whole process: the education. and good god, did i ever get one. we'll see what happens going forward, but i know now that i can handle whatever it happens to be.

like a laser

spring studying is just the worst. but this spring, more than any other since i graduated from high school (way longer ago than i care to contemplate), i cannot lock it down and get the tunnel vision i need to plow through. i mean, damn - the whole sorry operation is over in TEN DAYS. i'm one week from my first exam. and yet, i sit here blogging, which, while fun, is not studying. sigh. i know that this stuff matters, but it is SO FREAKING HARD to stay in the moment.

this is a theme in my life. i'm always either projecting forward or gazing back longingly. this time, it's really bad - in such a short amount of time, i get to go home. i basically live for that moment. but i have three more hurdles to clear before i can kiss this all goodbye, and i know this. so it's time to redouble my effort something fierce, and it's time to get in my head how important the next ten days are. these three exams are the keys to my escape. buckle down. one foot in front of the other. let's go get it. my way out relies on this...

high roller [TRUE STORY]

i was never rich. i was never poor, either. well, at least not that i ever knew. when i was a kid, i never wanted for anything. we had a decent, not-too-special place to live, cars for both parents (and later for me), dinners in restaurants, and many, many, MANY expensive extracurricular activities. i didn't know how much my dad gave up in his life to make damn sure i never had to go without something important to me. (yet another reason why i admire the hell out of my dad.)

so i came to my professional life with a sense of gratitude to the level of pay i received for my services. i always appreciated my jobs, even when they sucked. i came to law school to get a grounding in my profession of choice, not necessarily to be rich. that'd be nice, don't get me wrong; i love me some nice living, fancy hotels, etc., etc., etc. but i've spent the last three academic years studying law not solely for the money. i come to it because i love the law.

but! i am looking at, someday, a significant upgrade in my lifestyle once i get situated in my gig. i went to a dinner last night as part of the law center's fundraising campaign. and i'm not going to lie - the legal profession is some rarefied air for a teacher's kid. i don't know how many of my classmates are used to this life, but there's still kind of a shine to my future to me. maybe that's naive. maybe i have a slightly more retro look at work and wealth. i don't know. but what i do know is that, especially with my dream grad program ahead of me, things are gonna change.

change is good. positive change is better. it will be SO. FREAKING. NICE. to be comfortable economically. but with this upgrade will come some adjustments in my life. it'll be interesting to see where that takes me. the future. hmm. time for me to keep my head, stay true to my roots, and remember where i've been. that'll keep me nice and grounded, wherever i go.

popular mechanics

love is perhaps one of the most misunderstood concepts in the entire human condition. god knows we here in the ol' U-S-of-A don't have our heads on straight about it. we have chosen to build so much of our social fabric on these weird pillars: love, marriage, family, etc., etc., etc. and yet, a lot of these properties, which we've bound together, have next to nothing to do with each other.

i personally don't believe that we were put on this earth solely to couple off and perpetuate the race. being a heathen who's just really not that fond of kids, this is an understandable impulse. but more importantly, the older i get, the more i realize that the "bedrocks" of love and marriage are skewed beyond belief and, honestly, they're totally unrealistic. this is just not a good way to run a railroad, folks.

there's no denying the biological imperative exists. i may not have it, but it's out there - i've read a lot of people's writing about pining for the kid, the husband/wife/partner, and all that. but there are a couple of wrinkles to all this that we as americans are just not willing to face. the biggest one, BY FAR, is that love is not enough to make a coupling successful. there's a big difference between loving someone and being able to run a life with that person. there are people in my life that i love dearly, care about with all my heart and soul, and enjoy to no end. those people are also ROYALLY incompatible as life partners: we are at such crossed purposes about where, when and how to go about things. this is reality; sometimes love just ain't enough.

there are a number of approaches to this problem that american society proposes. largely, though, it perpetuates the myth that if you love each other hard enough, you can soldier through anything. bunk. this sort of rose-colored foolishness keeps the wedding and rom-com industry active, but it's no way to live. i propose instead that, when you're looking at your partner and thinking about THE FUTURE, you look long and hard at the mechanics. it's cold, hyper-rational, and on a number of levels, it brings the coupling/marriage process back to what it was in the beginning - a property arrangement with political and socioeconomic implications. marriage was not love-based until recently, kids.

romance is far from dead. it's just far from relevant when planning how to live the rest of your life. you can learn to be gooey-sweet romantic with someone you can run a life with. you can't reverse the process without trying to fundamentally change the person you supposedly love. that's not fair to either of you. bring your mind as well as your heart to the table, and you'll save yourself a lot of grief in the end.

seven days

i've finished seven days of "yoga month 2010: the en-sleek-ening." i'm really not sure what i think at this point. the classes themselves are great. the results? eh, mixed at best. i'm feeling a little stronger, and the poses are coming more easily, but i'm not sure it's translating to quantifiable weight loss (or qualitative toning/shaping/etc.). that's frustrating as hell, given all the work i've put in. but there are 23 more days to go, including today; there's time yet to improve.

physical improvement programs have always caused me angst and grief. first of all, it's annoying to be a girl-type person and lose weight. boys lose weight at a rate that's startling to me. my favorite sports blogger lost 50 pounds in 3 1/2 MONTHS. that is SO not fair. it took me damn near a year to lose the same amount of weight, doing largely the same sort of thing. grrr.

but biological gender difference aside, sigh, i think there's an inherent expectation among the high-achieving in the world that everything should come easily. i am SO guilty of this. i expect to be able to master anything i try quickly, largely because that's always been the way things have worked for me intellectually. (god, that sounds arrogant. but it's the truth.) but as much as i've achieved with my mind, i have struggled with sports, exercise regimens, etc. that kills me.

so this challenge is not only physical, it's attitude-related as well. i need to push to show myself that results can happen if i try hard enough. hell, i got into my dream grad program. i can sure as hell stick to an exercise regime. and i might even get something out of it as well. i hope, anyway.

shameless self-promotion time! [TRUE STORY]

your humble blog-prietor has been published. i am pleased beyond belief that people thought enough of my writing to put it in a compilation with some damn fine authors. and since i am nothing if not an accolade collector, i'm sharing this with you. go see me, and a TON of great writers, in the inaugural issue of drop of ink. you'll be glad you did!

down dog

the intensive 30-day yoga program is on. today will be day 4, and despite a persistent mild lower-back strain from still not being able to bring my legs out of a shoulder stand in any type of controlled manner, i am feeling pretty freaking awesome. the scale's a little lower, yes, but my mind is very clear, and that's the real benefit of all of this.

i'm not super-enthused about the spiritual aspects of yoga. i don't really like chanting "om," or talking about being in a space of god, or all that. my feelings on the sky-daddy thing are well documented. but leaving all that aside, there is something really mentally freeing about a 75-minute yoga class. i don't know if it's psychosomatic or real, but i have my theories. mainly, i think it's that yoga forces me to devote every ounce of mental and physical energy to the practice. check my balance, check my breathing, etc. i need to be dragged kicking and screaming out of my own head every once in awhile, and bridge pose makes that possible.

i've started reading hannah, just breathe... more regularly, and she does a fantastic job of encapsulating this sort of thing. better living through yoga and all that. i've started and stopped with yoga probably 10 times in the last decade. it's finally starting to click with me what the point is. that'll keep me coming back for sure now.

and hell - it's almost swimsuit season, right? :)

oh, and one more thing

re: yesterday's rant, i think coach mora said this best.