a break in the chaos.

So here I am. Sitting in the IMU building, one of the largest student unions in the world. I've exploded yogurt all over my black shirt, but that's only one of many awkward things and moments I've maneuvered myself into over the past couple weeks.

The past two weeks -- orientation and classes -- have been a sensory overload. It's been full of excitement and lunacy and confusion and hesitation, anticipation, awkward moments galore. There's been too much new stuff for anything real to settle into my brain lately.

But here I am, and the dust is settling. And I'm happy. And things are changing. The mountains are gone, but there are lush trees everywhere. My hair freaks out every time I step outside, but I feel an old familiar feeling of home in the humidity. My apartment is large and empty and echoey. My kitchen cabinets are full of books and my refrigerator has nothing in it but diet Coke, two yogurts and leftover stir fry. And watermelon in a bag. My clothes are piled everywhere because there is nowhere to put them. I wrote for five hours straight on Sunday because that is what I'm here to do.

Adjusting from the rigidity and soulessness of the 9-5 has been difficult, much more so than I thought. I wander around and have nowhere to be, and it's beautiful. I read because I can and because I'm not tired. And I work on poems all day because I can, because it's what I am here to do.

I think sometimes though, that solitude is too much for me. I think it makes me crazy. And I get nostalgic for the old lives, but I won't go back because I can't. Nothing will ever be the same, no matter how much we try to make it the same.

I have to remember that there are no endings, only changes.

at this juncture.

i feel like i'm never going to get packed. i've already packed up a lot of stuff, but it feels like the stuff is neverending. in about three days, i'll be panicking and throwing everything away or throwing it all randomly into boxes and garbage bags. my dad will be telling me, "i told you waiting til the last minute to pack was a bad idea." i'll be crying and having shortness of breath and gastrointestinal problems. it'll be an awesome farewell.

on the plus side though, i've been having such a great time in the company of lovely individuals whom i am proud to call my friends. i'm carpe-ing the diem and making the most out of my last days here. and if that means i spend my last few days freaking out and throwing everything i own in the garbage, then that's what that means. stuff is replaceable. these memories are not, and if i do not make them, i will not have them.

the things i will have to leave behind though... mostly furniture, but for some reason feels like giving memories away. giving the green foldy chair to the goodwill guy felt like handing over my memory of watching movies with leah and john sophomore year. my prom dress from senior year... i can't even fit into that thing anymore, but i don't want to give it up.

but it's the time to move on. things change, and i'm trying not to be frightened of it. i'm excited by it, but daunted. there are swells and snatches of emotions i catch during the day, whether it's brought on by mere contemplation or by a chord change in a song, or a line in a poem, or a stranger i see. sometimes i feel uncontrollably joyous, and sometimes i feel completely overwhelmed, like i'm being sucked into the undertow and i can't find which way is up.

but hell. as long as i'm here and you're here, i don't really care. no one's taking away my birthday, and we're well on our way to a good time.

i should be emotional.

I just dumped my pot pie on the floor. In slow motion, I watched as my hands somehow flipped the plate over, watched my potpie land facedown on the kitchen floor and then bounce, watched the pot pie goodness explode all over the place. The first words out of my mouth: "Shut up." And then, after a nice 45 seconds of staring dejectedly at the remains: "How the hell do I clean *this* up?"

With how things have been going lately, I'm surprised I wasn't hysterical and sobbing as I paper toweled up my pot pie's innards. But it's good that I'm not. It's about time I moved on from Hormone Town.

But I am hungry and have only half a pot pie to eat.

hormones are friggin AWESOME.

seriously. once a month, i get extremely irritable, want to shake my SO and possibly leave, and cry hysterically over things i wouldn't normally. honestly, i should be medicated probably.

i should probably go to sleep, but i'm trying to exorcise all this crap out of me. i'm listening to crappy music and beautiful music and trying not to think about moving and remembering why i love my SO and trying not to feel my heart falling into my stomach.

really. medicated. somebody sedate me.

whoa.

I can't believe how much I actually, seriously daydream about food in the course of a day.

And I can't believe how much I actually, seriously daydream about being outside when I'm in the office. Not anywhere special, but just outside.

Happy or sad? Who knows. It just is.

And then of course there's the mild drama that spices up my otherwise freezing and boring work day...

However, 1993 called and gave me its silver earrings, bright pink shirt and olive green loafer wedges outfit. Thanks, '90s! You're giving me lots of stuff lately...

some lunchtime reading.

"It is equally part of right thinking to reject decidedly any and every form of discrimination. Preconceptions of race, class or sex offend the essence of human dignity and constitute a radical negation of democracy. How far from these values we are when we tolerate the impunity of those who kill a street child; those who murder peasants who struggle for a minimum of justice; those who discriminate on the basis of color, burning churches where blacks pray because prayer is only white; those who treat women as inferior beings; and so on. I feel more pity than rage at the absurd arrogance of this kind of white supremacy, passing itself off to the world as democracy. In fact, this form of thinking and doing is far removed from the humility demanded by 'right' thinking. Nor has it anything to do with the good sense that keeps our exaggerations in check and helps us avoid falling into the ridiculous and the senseless.

"There are times when I fear that someone reading this...may think that there is no more place among us for the dreamer and the believer in utopia. Yet what I have been saying up to now is not the stuff of inconsequential dreamers. It has to do with the very nature of men and women as makers and dreamers of history and not simply as casualties of an a priori vision of the world."

-Paulo Freire, from Pedagogy of Freedom, page 41.

when the day is over, it's the end of the day.

-After work today, I went to the store and bought 4872398472 pop tarts. Why? I whisper jokingly to a hungry co-teacher as I munch on half a pop tart, "Well, fine, I'll just bring pop tarts for the whole class tomorrow." Then I hear, "OMG!!!!!! YOU'RE BRINGING POP TARTS FOR THE WHOLE CLASS TOMORROW?!" Hello, pre-teen freakout...

-Again, with the Marilyn Monroe moments as I walk down the street. How the hell am I always attracting the freak gusts of wind that blow my skirt up? Thanks, I've just flashed half of Spokane in the past two weeks...

-Cashier at Panda Express gazing at my chest. What? She's a lady. I think. And there ain't nothin to stare at on my chest.

-Fact: Whining=annoying. When grown men (and women) whine, it is called being a bitchass punk.

-I'm kind of excited about Mamma Mia. Yeah, take away my cool points. Didn't want 'em anyway.