A kind of long post about nothing too interesting. The real title? Happily Ever After

I always have mixed feelings after finishing a really great book. It's typically a good feeling of completion. The plot has come to a close, the conflict has resolved, the unraveled ends have been tied, everything's happy, and you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It's all fine and dandy, and a good time was had by all, or at least until the book is closed and completion is actually admitted. This is the point at which I frequently find myself experiencing with a feeling of loss.

Maybe I'm too emotionally involved. Okay I am too emotionally involved. I'll admit it. When I get wrapped up in a really good book, it almost quite literally becomes my world. I find myself enveloped into the details of the environment, and I can't help but wrap it into my everyday life, even outside of actually reading the book. I'm driving to the store and I find myself wondering how all those people would fit in that car if every last one of them suddenly turned into warewolves (Yes, I sadly admit that I read the Twilight series.). I find myself making mental bets on who would win the argument across the wall if their hands clutched wands and murmured spells escaped their lips. I find myself worrying that the clunk of the heater I hear as I drift off to sleep is Javier drawing ever nearer to capture Jean Val Jean, whom I suppose must be hiding in my closet. I attempt to imagine a world with no color, and try to extract memories of warmth and happiness in bitter times, wishing I could give them to others in desperate need. My heart breaks as I imagine my little nieces and nephews and kid friends marching off to war, and I wonder if I've been charitable and fair to those with calloused and impious scars on their hearts. It goes on and on.

So when I actually finish the book, it's like the world I have been living in for the past x amount of time has suddenly and unwantingly disintegrated with the close of the book. I have to come back to my own life, which is not quite as exciting as escaped convicts, mysterious cowboys, and magical make believe lands; or as dramatic as wars amongst children, lives of teenage girls who reach unattainable aspirations, or marriages of illicit lovers. Sure, the book may end in a happily ever after story tale ending, and that's great for them, but I'm left feeling as though I'm still dangling on a cliffhanger. Just as I feel a sense of completion in the book, just at the point where I feel as though the character's life (aka--mine, because I am that character now.) is where it aught to be, when the last page is read, and the book is closed, WA-BAM! I travel back through the time/world continuum and look up from the closed book to see my world once again. To hear my obligations calling. To feel my duties I've been neglecting demanding my attention.

So glad you had a happy ending, dearest Cosette/Fulton/Harry/Ender/Marjorie/super awesome character I have grown to love and adore that doesn't even exist, but now what am I supposed to do? I'm still in the middle of my story! I suppose I have learned some good things from some of you, and I suppose now I need to carry on with on my own story, tie up my own unraveled ends, resolve my own conflicts--present and future, fall and learn from my own shortcomings, rejoice in my own successes and blissful life, and find my own ultimate happy ending down the road. Let me just, you know, pick up this other book along the way...

Nobody's brain works this way. Nobody's.

You know you need to loosen up your schedule when you find yourself having to plan and map out everything down to your potty breaks throughout the day. You know your brain is in no state of mental being when you pull out of your secret study corner to realize you haven't slept, eaten, used your vocal cords, or had any kind of human contact in an uncomfortable amount of time. You know you need to relax when you find yourself annoyed at the unsuspecting person who knocked on your door due to your current level of high anxiety, your severe need to continue studying, and how dare they interrupt you. I hate finals week. It does weird things to me. The human body is not meant to undergo such conditions.

But it's okay, becuase I like this video.



Amen sister. Watching this on a daily basis will be a necessity this week.

It's after Thanksgiving. I'm allowed now.

After cooking apple pie, pecan pie, cheesecake, rolls, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pasta salad, and eating turkey, frog eye salad, mashed potatoes, more pie, and after enjoying the company of friends and family, and after much thanks-giving...

It's Christmas time!!! I've already enjoyed setting up a Christmas tree, cutting out paper snow flakes, buying Christmas presents, making Christmas crafts, decorating an apartment all Christmas-like, and making the season's first Christmas cookies. Now please enjoy my favorite Christmas clip. Go ahead and watch it multiple times. I won't judge.





MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Turns out I'm a sucker for pumpkin

I love fall. Fall means pumpkin. Anything pumpkin is delicious. I love pumpkin, and I overdosed on pumpkin this week--from breakfast to dessert, and everything in between. I had it all, and I loved every last heavenly bite.

My craving pumpkin week started out with making pumpkin pancakes. It was no let-down.

2 c. flour
3 tbl. brown sugar
1 tbl. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 3/4 c. milk
3 eggs
3/4 c. canned pumpkin
1/4 c. oil

Combine dry ingredients. In 2nd bowl combine remaining ingredients. Stir milk mixture into flour mixture until slightly lumpy.

A day or two later, I thoroughly enjoyed pumpkin and sausage pasta. It hit the spot on every level.

Hitting the end of the week, I still had pumpkin left, so I ventured into realms of unknown recipes and made pumpkin blondies, only with butterscotch chips instead of white chocolate chips. The new recipe was far from a disappointment. I hit success.

In between I had tastes of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and "pumpkin jems," which interprates to be something about a pumpkin muffin with some kind of cream cheese filling in the middle. Slightly mysterious, yet definitely scrumptious.

In my perusings, I restocked my pumpkin recipe inventory. I found a recipe for pumpkin nutella swirl bread. There's also always the options of pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin oatmeal, the original pumpkin pie (Thanksgiving is just right around the corner), pumpkin roll, pumpkin chili, pumpkin hot chocolate, pumpkin anything and everything! Bring it on! It seems I ran out of pumpkin though. Oh dear.

The last batch of cookies is meant to be burnt.

Sometimes it's a torrential downpour outside all day, and possibly inside depending on the leak that may or may not exist in the roof. Sometimes I have no choice but to drudge my way through the typhoon to my classes on campus. Sometimes the bottom of my pants get soaked (ew.), water leaks through my shoes (gross.), dampens my socks, and results in the relentless cold feeling that eeks through my toes and body throughout the day. Sometimes school and life weigh on me, overwhelming me. Sometimes it makes me grumpy.

Here's what I should do on said days: get up with a smile and grateful heart while counting my blessings, grab my umbrella, head off for my day, and carry on with my responsibilities--homework, studying, class attending, the usual--all while enjoying the pitter-patter of the rain, and the colorful splash of umbrellas dotting the campus, focusing on the good things of life.

Here's what really happened: I scoffed at my idealistic image of the day while trying, to no avail, to keep my sopping umbrella from flinging water all over my clothes, my backpack, the desk, other people, the whole classroom (you get the idea). I half-heartedly attempted homework assignments until defeat was admitted, found a couch in a quiet corner to take a nap while waiting for my next class to start, came home to ignore the pulling tug at my conscience to study for the looming tests ahead of me, quizzes that need to be taken, labs that need to be redone (because apparently I didn't get it the first go around), and diagnostic reports that need to be written. Rather, I watched epic TV series (cough, cough...Prison Break), listened to Christmas songs (please don't judge), and made pumpkin pancakes and double chocolate nutella cookies.

Looking back on my day, I realized how utterly and hopelessly unproductive it was. That sinking feeling in my stomach began as I pondered the things I could have done, that I should have done. Panic began to overtake my conscience as I thought of the insanely late night ahead of me while I would try to compensate for the significant lack of hard work accomplished throughout the day. These were my thoughts up until I burned the last batch of cookies, up until I had a sudden dawning of inspiration, realization, or maybe just justification. Call it what you may.

Some things are made solely meant to break the rules of our guilty conscience. It's for our own mental health. We have to have days to recoup once in a while. Sometimes it takes a cold, rainy day to get us there. Sometimes we have to realize that we don't have to do everything, that we can't do everything perfect. Sometimes it takes a C on that hard studied for test, that forgotten important meeting, or that overdrafted check to get us to that point--to step back, see the big picture, realize it's not a big deal, and return everything to perspective once again. Sometimes your cookies are going to burn. That's what the last batch is for, and that's okay.

So you have a few slightly darker, crispier than the rest cookies. It happens. They're only a few in the whole batch of delicious morsels anyway.

Confession

I've turned into the very person at whom I've always rolled my eyes. I can't seem to stop though. Allow me to explain: There was a decorating magazine on my table this morning. I looked through the Christmas section. Everytime I look at our front window, I can't help but think, that with a touch of frost, it would exactly resemble a Christmas window (you know the kind--with the white squared panes where a lonely stranger gazes in as he wanders by to see a family happily having a warm Christmas inside). My roommate and I have already strategically planned where we will place mistletoe in such a way that people will be trapped in the entryway. Christmas songs are starting to randomly pop into my head. I make very little effort to be rid of them.

I'm getting excited for Christmas.

It's only mid October.

Typical Day of Learning

Much of the past week was spent in the library, learning lots of things. Here's about how the process went:

• TBI stands for Traumatic Brain Injury.
• Blasterball on my phone is amazingly distracting and addictive.
• For every female that stutters, there are 5 males.
• It's amazing the places you can actually fall asleep when you reach a certain point of exhaustion.
• Areas of communication challenge in TBI (see bullet point 1): semantic, verbal pragmatics, nonverbal pragmatics
• When I put my Flava-craze Tropical Twist chapstick on right before I drink a bunch of water it tastes like juice.
• High school seniors aren't the only ones that suffer from seniorities.
• Something about z scores, standard deviations, normal curves, sampling, blah, blah, blah...
• Even if I'm not particularly tired, I can still manage to fall asleep studying this real special information.
• Wait until you're fully awakened before going to the bathroom after waking up from a nap in the library or you might stumble into the wrong bathroom: Lesson learned.
• There are 23 muscles that attach to the Hyoid Bone, most of which assist in the speech process.
• Fact: The day you don't shower or put much care into outward appearance is the day you will run into the majority of people you know.
• If I don't focus better, I will do very poorly on the tests I have this week...but then again, I kind of quit caring. Vicious cycle.

It's been a productive week.

Characters, real life ones

Disclaimer: All names in this post have been changed, with the exception of one. This person's name just adds far too much to his/her profile to be sacrificed.

Questionable characters from my day:

• Old man with a briefcase in a bowler hat swiftly walking/almost running past me down the infamous stretch of stairs on campus. I have no idea to where he was in such a hurry, but he looked important.


• Extremely happy young man riding on his moped--complete with long blond hair flapping in the wind and what could quite possibly be the biggest, goofiest grin I've ever seen. I have no idea what was making him so happy, but it made me smile.


• 3 boys dressed in pristine, white lab coats holding clipboards gathered around innocent ducks at a pond. I have no idea what they were studying, but it was weird.

Epic characters from my life:

• Dick - Dick and I crossed paths my first semester of college where I was friends with some of his roommates. He was a short, fiery young man who bicked his head and wore a doo rag. He was an ex cop, and somehow decided it gave him the liberty to carry around a gun on person everywhere he went. Although it was not usually loaded, He felt no inhibitions in pulling it out once in a while for show.
  
• Mr. Bee, the high school band teacher - Mr Bee is a loud, rather energetic teacher who was not necessarily a favorite among students. Not only did he frequently spit while he talked, but would have won the award for longest distance in spit track. The clarinets and flutes were among those unfortunate souls sitting in the front row. I played the clarinet. I'd like to think he had a slight anger problem in addition to his inability to confine his saliva to his own mouth. He would get really frustrated with us sometimes. There's a hole in the wall that fits his head perfectly to prove it.

• Renee - Renee was one of my many piano teachers. She is from Hong Kong, and is the sweetest girl who just loves music, and loves it played right. So as to follow along to make sure it was being played right, she would sit extremely close to the piano, and in effect, extremely close to me. When I played to loud, I would find her hands right next to mine in the "stop" gesture, accompanied with a shoosh. The usual "shhhhhh," however, was adapted to her accented "sssss." On the other hand, when I played not quite loud enough, I would hear a lofty "louder!" as she tried to be heard over my piano banging. I always knew, however, when I played at a satisfactory level due to the slight swaying I would feel coming from her direction.
  
• Dr. Spall - I have never met somebody with a more dry sense of humor. Dr. Spall is one of my professors here at school, and is every classic stereotype of a college professor. He can be found through the vast majority of the class teaching in a monotonous tone, with his back to the students, scribbling madly on the board. To top it all off, he looks like Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter minus the revolting rat look.

• Unknown mystery man - This treasure was found in a different country, and was equipped with a leather jacket, extremely reflective aviator sunglasses, and a motorcycle helmet tucked in the crook of his arm. He walked with a definite purpose in a slight saunter with the tiniest upward tilt of his chin, never lowering his gaze past the horizon, not even in a glance to descend the staircase (try it, it's hard.). Without saying a word, He demanded attention from all eyes as he walked by, yet his demeanor screamed he could not have cared less, let alone even notice.
  
• Last, but not least, let's discuss one more person, one I have known for as long as I can remember/is me. She refuses to be titled OCD, yet she gets her underwear in a bunch if she finds the toothpaste has been squeezed from the middle, or finds crumbs in her butter. She walks around failing miserably whilst attempting to be the female version of previous said mystery man, only to find herself in a collapsed bundle at the bottom of the stairs. She tries to pull off a British accent once in a while, but is never successful, yet still manages to think it's cool.

Moral of the story: I don't care how normal we think we are, we cannot escape our own idiosyncrasies. Might as well just let 'em show. It's what makes life fun, and maybe somebody else will even be slightly entertained by them.

The summer from where?

My summer "vacation" has come and gone and here I am back in another new place to live with mixed feelings as I wait for school to start on Monday. A rather large chunk of my summer was spent in agony studying for and taking the GRE, sucking everything out of me in the process, that is with the exception of the dread I would feel every night knowing I had to continue it the next day.

I could be found sitting at these tables bending over these piles of vocab cards everyday.

Another chunk was spent turning green at the grinder while I pulvarized feed samples into a powder that results in hazy air and irritated senses accompanied with itchy rashes in my elbow pits. Although not particularly fun, it was surprisingly a nice reprieve from the hours of studying many days, but other days it just turned me into a She-Hulk--green and grumpy.

I survived the dreary, however, and managed to come out conquerer, because look what I can do now...

The impecunious dilettante pretended to be a polyglot to impress the debutante, but as he spoke garrulously in different languages he didn't know on various pastiches, he made many solecisms. The effronteric girl who was initially excited to find a fellow speaker of her language who also had exorbitant ardor for art felt lugubrious at the boys affection and vituperated him for it, and then made a tangential comment to change the subject.

...make ridiculous long run-on sentences filled with big words I'm not sure I'm using right.

Not only did I survive, but I even managed to have a little bit of fun too. All the family came to visit and see the new house. It was one big party.

My parents and I took a trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia where we did all sorts of fun things, including ZIP LINING!

I also better include the day trip I took with a bunch of friends to Cour de Alene to play in Silverwood.

Yes, apparantly girls still have cooties and boys still come from Mars.

Last and certainly not least, my summer went out with a bang when my old roommate came to visit where we played around Seattle and Moses Lake.

So even though I complain about how unexciting the majority of my summer was, it wasn't all bad at all, and it was definitely memorable, for the better and the worse.

I'm a what?!

It's happened and I kind of died a little bit on the inside when it did, but I beg to differ. I most certainly am not what I have been accused of being...I can't be. I'm not that old yet...right?

To make a not so long and mostly irrelevant story even shorter, a week or so back, a zip lining guide (yup, cause my dad and I went zip lining. No big deal. IT WAS AWESOME!) yelled at me in his mesmerizing Canadian/Irish accent as I zipped off on one of the lines, "You're a well traveled woman!" Little did anybody involved know that such a simple, offhand, harmless statement would be the cause of a bit of internal turmoil I would later feel.

At the time, I was too caught up in the excitement of the swift motion as I was swept off my feet, of the notion of flying as I looked down to see my feet dangling in nothing but air, and of the breathtaking scenery lying peacefully hundreds of feet below me. It wasn't until several days after the fact while I was recreating every moment of my zip lining experience, that I actually heard exactly what that guide said. "You're a well traveled woman." hmmm, something about that statement. It feels weird. "You're a well traveled woman." What is it? "You're a well traveled woman" Wait a second. "You're a well traveled WOMAN." AHHHHHHHH!

But I'm still a little girl! I've never been called a woman before without a "young" preceding it. You could have just as easily inserted girl. Everybody else does. Stop trying to rob me of my youth!

That's what I said to that guide when I marched right back up to that zip lining place to tell him a thing or two. I wanted to make sure things were set right...at least in my head.

Women are supposed to be old, married with children, mature, responsible, accomplished. They're supposed to know exactly where they're going with their life, have accomplished great things, have responsibility and amazing foresight and wisdom. They're supposed be able to handle difficult situations cooly, be the voice of reason, give life-changing advice, and have responsibility. A woman's supposed to be responsible. Did I mention that?

All good qualities, right? Right, but you see, Mr. childhood snatcher, I seem to lack the most vital characteristics of womanhood. I laugh at the wrong things at the wrong times, sometimes I talk about gross things, I'm not so sure about where my life will end up, I currently spend the majority of my days rotting at the table studying or decomposing at the hay grinder. In a matter of weeks I will be constantly entombed in the belly of the library, beginning the transformation from young woman to zombie once again. I talk in a British accent and dance around the house when nobody is looking, I never grew out of my fear of car washes, aka I'm a wimp, and when something scary or hard comes along, I want to hide. Most of all, I'm. not. old. enough.

Some people are visual learners, so just to belabor my point in case you're not catching my drift, allow me to demonstrate my absence of womanhood further.

A real woman

A significant

lack of woman

See the difference?

Thus, Mr. zip lining Canadian/Irish, youth steeling guide person, you have been severely mistaken, because, you see, I am not old enough to be a woman.

right?

I win.

Dear evil, hateful laptop,

It was you, not me. I have moved on, and I'm much happier now. Good riddance.

Michelle

pale skin + too much sun + bright red color = unnatural and very painful

It's not that I like to walk around as if I'm a gorilla. Sometimes walking with your arms hung far from your body halfway down to the ground, and the waddle that results from your knees barely bending just calls for neccesity. I'm really not trying to score pity points in trying to be an old woman as I slowly and feebly set my sore body down, or gently and painstakingly raise to get up from the couch. I don't usually wince everytime someone touches me, as if any kind of physical contact must be endured rather than enjoyed. Normally I really do like hugs. I don't typically feel the need to walk around in extremly baggy clothing, or slightly less than modest material. It's not that I hold great disdain for wearing seatbelts or that the pained grimace I give everytime I reach for one is geared toward "click it or ticket." I've always been a pro seatbelt wearer. I know I like the color red a lot, but not that much. I know it looks like I'm still wearing a white swim suit, but that's actually the real color of my skin. I'm not really pro skin cancer and anti sunscreen. Believe it or not, I actually applied it twice that day. I really do believe in the application of layers of aloe vera, vinegar, and any other possible elixir that could even remotely have the potential to help the incessent burning at all (BioWater shoutout--Thank you Ottos!). Sometimes it just happens, but I have no idea how it got this bad. It's not because I didn't try. I guess I should thank my ancestry for the excessively pale complection I inherited. However it happened, until the insane itching begins, the smouldering along with the gorilla walk and old woman movements continue.

Happy Father's Day

Coming back from a jog around a field the other day, I sat down to remove the prickly stickers that inconspicuously found their way to my socks as I trecked through the weeds. As I carefully pulled the stickers off, I thought of how they seemed to hurt so much more as a child. I suddenly remembered my dad picking the same stickers from my socks for me when I was a little girl. It made me think of all those times I would venture into the fields with my dad to "help" him in his sampling process.

It was always an adventure. The trip would start out with a quick jaunt into the day old hostess store where my dad would let me pick out the Hostess treat of my choice to savor throughout the ride to the fields--a ho-ho, snowball, ding-dong, or cupcake, and sometimes I would even score a soda. Once we reached the designated field, and after much persuation that the crop circles were not going to jump to life and run me over, we trecked to a specific spot where my dad would let me do the "big kid's" job and hand me the trowel/stick thing to dig into the dirt to retrieve the needed soil for the sample. He patiently waited as my feeble attempts to dig as deep as needed slowed the process he could have done much quicker. When my little muscles and small body just couldn't quite manipulate the dirt digger (what is that tool called anyway?), he would lovingly put his hands over mine and help me shove it to the depths required.

After a while, my body would begin to tire and I would start to complain of the hot sun when my dad would caringly take the time to guide me to a spot of shade, or back to the pickup with the cool air conditioning. Once he finished the job I couldn't quite complete, he would come back to the pickup where he would find me whimpering over the uncomfotrable pokes in my shoes I couldn't get rid of. He would give me a sympathetic smile and gently remove them from my socks and clothing. He would give me a pat and ask if it felt better as we climbed back in the car for the drive home.

Throughout the whole process, my dad never got impatient with me even though I accomplished it at a painstakingly slow pace. He never got angry that I wasn't doing it right. He never got fed up that I was complaining too much. He always let me do as many samples as I wanted, and in so doing, created some of the best childhood memories I have with my dad. Although I no longer make the trips into the fields with my dad, to this day he still exercizes all of these qualities. He is gentle, kind, loving, charitable, patient, hard working, and if anything is hurting his family, he is going to take care of it. Thanks for all that you do Dad. I love you.

heart warmed

Confession Time: I have never been one for good-byes, especially long drawn out ones. I really rather despise them actually. Everytime I find myself having to say goodbye to a family member I find myself struggling to maintain composure. If I'm lucky and can get away with just a quick hug and a "see ya later" with no backward looks or lingering, I can sometimes get away with just a lump in the back of my throat. It annoys me. I don't want to be like this. I feel like a whimp everytime.

The past week and a half Lanita and her family were visiting. The 10 days they were here came and went in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, the time for the dreaded goodbye came, and once again I felt that familiar knot in my chest threatening to work itself up. This time I was determined to conquer it and stay strong. I was doing better than ever, that is until I came to my 9-year-old nephew. After a big hug he said, "Thank you for being a part of this. It wouldn't have been as much fun without you." Whamo. Thank you, Abram, for making that tearless goodbye nonexistent--and for making me feel like a million bucks. Heart warmed for the day...check.

I'm a...country girl?

My parents moved. I live in the country now. I've never lived in the country before. The next door neighbor is a Farmer Joe's field. Accross the street, a crop circle. I can't make heads or tails of which endless country road I'm on. My initial thought at seeing Road N: They forgot the rest of the street name. My ears strain from the lack of noise. I find myself on edge outside at night in the absence of city lights--complete darkness. A dog will never be my best friend. Bugs make me uneasy. I still can't bring myself to get close enough to kill a spider. I don't know how to drive a stick shift. I'm no country girl.

I can at least find my way to and from the new house. I couldn't care less about breaking a nail. I like to drive with the windows rolled down. I at least know the crop in our backyard is wheat. I'm no country girl, but it's a start.

There's the wheat. This I know.

The result of 3 years of school

Dear Laptop,

I know you hate me. I know that you try to do everything in your power to make me miserable and frustrated. I know how you lulled me into a false sense of security in the beginning, and then slowly began to deteriorate, always waiting for the prime opportunity to leave me in the biggest lurch I've had yet. I know how you're doing it so gradually so as I might not notice, tricking me into thinking it's just become the new status quo for the way you run. I'm onto you.

I've noticed how you no longer run as fast as our first years together, that your battery seems to have decayed, that any of the external device readers only work some of the time, of the way you have gradually foced the hinges that hold the screen up loose, making the screen wobble when it's erect, and that the DVD/CD reader have progressively blown out and no longer function. I know of your devious ways as you assign new default printers without my knowledge, of how you print pictures and pages full of random alienated codes when I order you to print my research papers, of the way you play songs that I have never even downloaded on the media player that's not open. I recognize your scrambled mixed up keyboard with your many keys that have dislocated and scattered. I see your 4 typing when I touch the keys next to it, and your letter L situated crookedly. I notice your R sitting askewed and falling off with every couple of touches. I caught your semicolon attempting to relocate to a different position on your keyboard. I know how you crudely play with me as you threaten to simply not turn back on when I restart you. You're a sly one; however, I am too.

Despite what you may think, I know yelling and banging won't do anything to change your mind. I know how to accommodate for your curve balls. I know different combinations of button pushing and finger jabs to force you to do what I want. I have learned certain ways to come in through the back window you didn't even know existed to do things you wouldn't let me do before. I've gotten good at spotting all the number 4s intermixed in my school papers, and amazingly quick at jabbing keys back into place. Most of all, I know just to avoid turning you off to ensure that you will never permanently shut off on me.

In other words computer, I am well aware of our contempt for each other. I also know that you have the upper hand in this war. I can probably figure out any other fastball you decide to throw, however, there is not much I can do if you decide to pull the terrorist card and crash for good one day. You see, I still have several years left of school and I still need you. All I know to say to you is please, I will be mostly nice if you will be mostly nice. I don't care what else you come up with, just don't die on me. Just hang in there a little longer, and I won't hit quite so hard next time.

With many disgruntled pleadings,

Michelle

P.S. Is this what they call a love-hate relationship?

Thus the prologue begins.

Here I begin my running "prologue." Although I seem to have no problem spacing out and thinking about absolutely nothing (and to those of you that say that's impossible to do, I give you living proof), I also frequently find myself caught in a running dialogue in my head dealing with various musings and pointless thoughts. I don't know if this is normal. It probably isn't, but I don't really care seeing as I often find myself quite entertained by them. So why then, you might ask, the word choice of "prologue?" Despite these random ideas and sometimes shallow thoughts I encounter, this choosing of vocabulary goes slightly deeper. The choices I make today, the thoughts I think now, the actions I undertake here, are a precursor to what will come--a prologue for tomorrow. Shakespeare writes in The Tempest, "What is past is prologue." My past has helped shape me into who I am in the present I am living, and this present will shape me into who I am in the future. Everyday is an introduction to tomorrow. Everyday gives something new to stem from,--a new experience, another mistake made, a lesson learned, a celebration to be had, and many more idle thoughts created. So past, present, and future, I give you my prologue...