It's Actually Warm Outside (or Am I Just Dreaming?)

Today is the first day in a very long time during which I did not wear tights when I stepped outside, nor did I feel the need to wear four sweaters. Oh, that's not a joke; my layering of clothes is legendary here. I'm pretty sure ballads have been written about it, and if not, then perhaps I should write one.

As it may be, I'm still wearing knee-high socks, which are sort of like half tights, but not. It's funny to me how fifty degrees is now in my mind "a nice day." Back in southern California (I only mention this because the NorCal folks have it a bit different up near Mount Olympus), "a nice day" consists of sun, and perhaps a sixty-five degree temperature. (Also, "nice days" make up 364 days out of the year in SoCal, for those of you who didn't know. Just kidding. We do occasionally see rain, maybe once, twice a year.)

When I was walking from the residence campus to the main campus, all I kept thinking was how long it would take for me to actually get tan again, and about how much I missed the sun and having nice days. For a SoCal chick like myself, the repetitive nature of wearing four sweaters and tights under my jeans with a coat and a hat and a scarf and gloves (and yes, I'm aware that not everyone has my mad layering skills) is exhausting.

Yup, that's me in California, not the Yukon, as I would have you believe.  

So while I have resigned myself, er, chosen the bitter chill of the eastern seaboard over the glorious warmth of the golden coast, I can be at ease that at least people out here won't judge me if I'm not swimsuit ready in January. 

Lazy Writing

Pocket Watch

Marge’s hands patted her pockets frantically, digging out old receipts, her money folded onto itself, keys, remains of gum wrappers, a paper clip, a rubber band, some spare change and lint. It’s not here, it’s not here, kept going through her mind. Papa’s watch is gone. I lost it. A small screech was emitted from her. She was only down the street from her flat, so she left all of her groceries in the middle of the aisle at the Market, oranges and soup cans rolling, and fled back to her place. She passed by Mrs. Johanson walking Charles de Gaulle, and didn’t pat him on the head as she usually did; her feet took her swiftly home. As she ran, her eyes scanned the streets, looking for any glimmer of silver, any trace that her father’s pocket watch was not gone forever. But nothing caught her eye and the knot in the pit of her stomach, (or was it the stitch in her side?), turned to nausea as she took the steps up to her flat and avoided thinking about thought about what would happen if she couldn’t find the timepiece. The watch had to be here. It would be here. Anxiously waiting for the lift, her feet danced up and down, her tan flats making quiet noises on the marble floor. Pat pat pat. The lift, taking too long, was left behind, as Marge hurled herself up the stairs. It was only five flights after all.

Just as she reached the fourth flight, her mouth dry with fear that the one thing left of her father would be gone forever, she turned the corner up to the next flight and smashed right into her neighbor. Though she was about to sprint up the last flight of stairs, he grabbed her wrist and gently pulled her back. She saw that he had the chain of her father’s watch dangling between his fingers. He grinned impetuously; one eyebrow slanted up. Marge tried to snatch the watch from him. The neighbor pushed his wire-rim glasses up the bridge of his nose. Marge tried again to take the watch. The neighbor tapped his cheek. Marge rolled her eyes, though a kiss was a small price to pay for something so priceless to her, and pecked him on the cheek. The neighbor carefully handed Marge her father’s watch. He passed her on the stairs and she didn’t catch his smile as she sat down, cradling the watch in her hands. Papa, she thought.

Oh Hello...Snow

Being that I am a native California (yeah, that's right, my home state takes up most of the west coast; whatcha gonna do about it?) I still am in awe every time it snows. Now granted, I had seen snow before moving to Boston (there's photographic evidence somewhere) but when it snows and I am inside and I am able to actually enjoy it, there's something great and majestic and magical about it.

Yes, I am well aware that it is a cold, harsh beast when you are in the middle of it, slogging through piles up to your kneecaps and all you want to do is lay down in it and give up and die. Yes, I've had this experience too. But right now, as I sit at the switchboard in the MCB and watch as the flurries come down, I like the calm that the snow brings. It sort of reminds me of standing at the edge of the ocean, watching the waves come in. It's gives me that feeling of, "Wow, this is something bigger than me. Something I could never recreate in the same way." And no, Michael Bay, you can try all you want, but you can't ever capture this same feeling.

And yes, because I am feeling lethargic for the very reason that it is snowing outside and I all I want to do is curl up with a good book, I leave you with an assignment I created for my Writing II class recently:

The first time I saw snow, I thought the world had ended. It didn’t make me afraid, but rather, it made me want to be the only person on the entire Earth able to experience this magic. It was a selfish wish, to not share the snow with anyone else.The sharp, crisp outline of the tree outside my window looked like a beacon of the apocalypse, its branches pointed out to the road. Each individual piece of bark seemed as if one breeze would blow them all away. I opened my window and the world was quiet, quieter than I had ever experienced. It was peaceful, made me more hyper aware of my own being.

My breathing was the only sound, soft, shallow, my breath coming out in short puffs that appeared in front of me and dissipated into the quiet. The snow was falling slowly, flake after flake seeking more like it until they all gathered on the ground, a giant white layer of powder that covered the driveway, and trailed out into the yard. If I jumped out the window, I was certain that I would float like a snowflake and poof into the pile on the ground, as if the snow was nothing more than a pile of feathers.

I reached out and caught some snowflakes, each one more delicate than the next, so small, and yet I could see every fiber, every ice crystal, and I wanted to keep all of them frozen to commemorate this moment in time.

No matter how old I grow, it is this moment that I remember every time it snows. 

Spring Break(age)

So my two best friends showed up in Boston this weekend to visit me, and as we walked around and I showed them the city, I couldn't help but think about how much we've all changed since we met.

I've known these two since we were eighteen, which seems like such a long time ago. I guess, in retrospect we've not changed too much, considering that we're still friends, and that we've survived undergrad, that we all moved to and from opposite ends of the States, multiple years of grad school between us, and various other things - bad haircuts, bizarre clothing choices, questionable relationships, etc. But through it all, and no matter where we were, or where we were going, we've managed to keep in touch, and I love these girls like family.

This weekend helped to reinforce that (though it didn't need any reinforcing), and as I said before, we have all changed since we first met. One of my friends, in fact, said something along the lines, of "How did we all met? How did we all have this similar sense of humor to *enter inside joke here that I will not insert, as my readers will not understand it* and find each other?" We had to sit and think about that for a moment, because we actually couldn't remember the specifics off-hand, but what it comes down to is that we were meant to meet, in whatever circumstances that it was or would have been, and for that, I'm grateful that we did find each other and that we are still friends. 

Work of a Digressive Nature

So...I really should be writing my mentorship proposal draft, but lately I've been running on let's-wait-till-the-last-minute clock, and while homework and work and life have still been going, it's that extra drama that has slipped in that I don't particularly enjoy. And yet, I find myself here again, writing, but not writing what I should be writing, and at ten o'clock at night when I should be sleeping, I will be trying to crank out my mentorship proposal and it's going to be CRAP CRAP CRAP. 

Oh well. At least it's a draft. 

Here's the beginning portion: 

Lottie may look like a normal sixteen year old, but if you look closer, she is not normal at all. For most of her sixteen years, Lottie’s fingers glow whenever she meets someone new, and she hears a voice in her head, which she has named Harold. Harold cannot tell Lottie why he has been talking to her for years and years, until Lottie sent by her mother to stay with Lottie’s great-aunt Gertrude over the summer. Gertrude, like Lottie, is hiding secrets. When Lottie begins to discover what more of Gertrude’s secrets are, her world begins to get infinitely more complicated. With the help of Charlie, a boy that has more in common with Lottie than she realizes, it is up to them to save not only their world, but also another world whose entire existence depends on the decisions they make. Can Lottie suspend her fears to travel to this other world and gain control of her power to defeat an evil that threatens both worlds before it’s too late?

Yeah, I know. CRAP. 

Various Musings

Once again, I find myself with a project as I sit at the switchboard. Which is not to say that I am not doing my job, but there's always down time in between the inane buzzing of the switchboard and the entire undergrad population asking me where the financial aid office is. (I would think that the location of that particular office might fall under the category of common knowledge, however, one should never assume anything.)

As it may be, I have another hour and a half on my shift, before I return to my second job, where I probably won't have time to write, so write at the switchboard it is.

I'm contemplating getting a second tattoo. Well, not so much contemplating, as already decided and will probably get in the very near future. So near, it might be tomorrow, if the parlor has an opening when I pop down there. Which I hope that they do. The one tattoo I have is about two years old now, and I've been itching for a second one.

Well, we shall see.