Twenty

They say your early twenties can be the most exciting years of your life. You're the strongest, most attractive and have the most stamina and sexual heat than any other time in your life. Your whole future stretches before you like the ocean. You don't know what's out there for you, but it's big and it's gonna be great!

Your early twenties can be hell, too. You have so little background and experience, no knowledge of how to take care of yourself, your home, your bills, your dog. Crises are met with higher stages of alert and more freaking out because this is the first time that you have to solve them without an umbrella of protection coming from your parents, your school, or the 'hey, don't blame me, I'm just a kid!' excuse. You're a full blown adult with no credentials to back it up.

This is where I'm supposed to find out what I'm really made of, to show my strength. So why do I feel so helpless?

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

So I've been thinkin lately about my skillz. I have pretty high opinion of myself, so I think, by and large, my tricks and talents are not only extensive, but awesome.

But the thought that worries me now is... Right now my expertise and technique are gettin me through life. However..... What if society fell? What if alien's attacked, or even just the economy collapsed? Would I be able to survive? How will my good memorization skills, my humor, and my random file of facts help me get food, find shelter, or not get killed?

I don't mean that super dramatically. Right now what I can do helps me get a job that helps me get food and shelter and what I do know keeps me from getting killed. (Like not to cross the street when a bus is comin.) But what about the day when restaurants are but a memory? When the food you eat comes from you own hands in a much more direct manner than the present day? Will I be able to keep on kickin?

It's kinda like the old "Could I survive a zombie attack?" question that everyone must ponder at some time in their life, but much more realistic. I think I'm more likely to see a fourth world war in my life time than my mother eating the remains of her neighbors. For which I am very glad.

Justification

Sometimes it's OK to close your hand to a friend. Or shut a door in their face. Say no. This is something I have decided to stand firm on, and no one can change my opinion. Cutting someone out of your life because their not doing enough for you is reasonable. It doesn't mean your selfish to finally say Enough! It just means your tired, jaded, and poor. Or under the influence of a Jew.

Tennis golf

Sometimes I think people are like tennis balls when their lives begin. Tennis balls that get shot out of those tennis ball shooter things and go wildly spinning through the air. Some of them knock all over the place, some of them go off in the completely wroong direction, some soar through the air with a grace that makes one believe in miracles. But they all get pulled at by gravity, and they all eventually slow down, and they all eventually stop. Some get stuck in a rut.

That's what made me think of this tennis ball analogy, thinkin of someone near and dear who has rolled into a neat, comfortable little rut with no way to get out. And the more I think about it, the more I think of other people I know that are the same way.

Sometimes, I just wanna take em and shake em and tell them to do something else with their time- anything would be better than comfortable misery.

But instead I just blog like this.

On an unrelated note, I took my dog down to the tennis courts today to pick up a free ball n then throw it around. It was fun.

2009

My birthday and Christmas both passed in this last month without a mention from me, so I don't want to let New Years pass without notice.

I always really liked end of the year commentary and 'best/worst/most interesting of the year' lists from everyone to CNN to the Chronicle. Seems like anyone who can put a sentence together feels like that entitles them to the right to judge and categorize the happenings of the last twelve months and use their opinions to define a year and cast them in stone as historical fact.

The pop culture junkie in me always lapped it up willingly. I still think it's interesting to hear about what some random blogger thinks were the worst movies to see while drunk were of 2008.

The problem with these end of the year reflections is, in a year, hell, by February, none of their witty observations or intense judgments will matter. No one will give a shit if your blogging uncle thought Batman sucked or that People magazine thought George Carlin will be more missed than Betty Page. It's on to the next thing, and the compiling of new 'worst dressed' or 'biggest block buster of the summer' lists for the next December issue.

Normally, I wouldn't really care. If we all still gave a shit about who sold the top ten best records of 1996, life would be really boring. Music would prob sound a lot different, too.

For me, though, 2oo8 will go down as an important year for me. As I reflect back on the last 12 months, it's a struggle for to sum up what they meant to me and my personal growth. For me, 2oo8 will not just be the year Heath Ledger died, we got our first black president, or even the year I dropped out of school. 2oo8 has been such a big one in personal growth for me in every aspect. 2oo8 was HARD, filled with ups and downs, and more downs. I had too many 'events' this year that changed me or will become a story, not just to tell while sittin around one day with a beer in my hand, but major crossroads in my life.

For example, in 2oo8, I went from being a smoker to stronger than a cigarette. 2oo8 was also the year I met the man, who, even if he leaves my life soon, will forever go down as my first love and real relationship. It was the year I grew up and wanted to settle down, even though I failed at it a few times. 2oo8 was the year I learned how to ride a bike, got fired for the first time, and took a stab at supporting myself. 2oo8 was the year of mushrooms, roommates, and zennin out, or at least trying to. And let me not fail to mention the Clay Pit.

2oo8 was the year life threw a bunch of crap at me just to see what would stick. Sometimes I made it out clean, sometimes I didn't. But I learned a lot, and am pretty determined not to make (some) of the same mistakes again. I have to admit a lot of the shit that I stepped in could have been avoided, but it's all part of the process of livin, right? I just hope I can get though the next year more independent than the last one, and more of a support to the people around me.

That brings me to my new year's resolution- to be more self sufficient. Can't wait to read this in December and reflect...

Campin out

It's December. Usually, in this part of the world, that means the sun frequents the sky less, the earth gets colder, and the wind blows ice.

This year has been no exception.

This did not stop me from going camping this weekend, however. And it was coooooooooooold. So cold. It was the kind of cold that creeps inside your sweater and buries itself in your bones. It was so cold we shivered like mice and laughed and laughed and laughed as if each howl fanned hot coals in our stomachs to keep us warm.

I slept drowning in a sea of blankets up to my forehead, but every once in a while, I woke up with a sharp gasp for fresh air. The moon was beautiful. It was full and silver and shone like a broach on a navy blue velvet dress of sky. It was like a naked bulb high on the ceiling of a tall tall room. It was a spotlight in an empty theatre where my fellow players were asleep on stage with me. I was the only person alive in a frozen, sleeping world... at least it felt like that.

The moon's pearl glow woke me up, or maybe it was the icy air nipping at my toes, but I had a few minutes of open eyed reflection that night. The most amazing thing happened. I was staring at the sky through the open roof of the tent, the moon following me like a policeman's search light, and the naked branches of the trees above me stretching across my view like saladfingers. But it was the stars I was watching. The stars, which are great to stare at in the middle of dark nights out in places away from city lights, started dancing. Not in the traditional sense, but in the minute or so that I lay there staring, I must have seen fifteen shooting starts zoom past my head.

They were not the first shooting stars I've ever seen, but I certainly had never seen so many. Alone in my frozen dark world I tried to nudge my sleeping neighbors- my man on my right, and my roommate on my left- into waking so they could experience it as well, but as I struggled to open my mouth, nothing came out. Even the act of rolling over and shaking my boyfriend was too much for me, and before I got all the way on my side, I passed out until the morning.

When the sun woke us up the next day, I told my hunny about the shooting stars. "Oh, yeah. I saw them, too," he said, like a shower of flying fireballs raining across the sky is an everyday occurrence for him. For me, though, the fact that he saw them excited me even more than the stars had the night before, because as I was explaining what I saw to him, something dawned on me- I never could have seen the shooting stars. I wasn't wearing glasses in my sleep.

The sky was dark and the the gaseous balls in the sky were bright, but with my poor eyesight and the fact that the nearest one was aprox. 673 trillion miles away, I realized I was probably dreaming.

Which brings me back to my wonderful man's visions- he saw what I saw. So what happened here? Did I feed off his psyche to see with my closed eyes? Was I given sight for two minutes by some greater force than I? Were we both dreaming the same thing? Or is just a case of coincidence, that I dreamt the same thing he saw at the same time?

I may never know.

I Saw A Book The Other Day That Was Titled

The fifty greatest things in the whole world-

But I decided to think of my own list.

Parts one through 15.

1. sittin arouund sum fire.
2. crying sometimes when you need to.
3. orgasms.
4. snuggling.
5. truth.
6. naps.
7. laughter.
8. babies, puppies, sprouts and all other young things that are just so innocent and fresh.
9. weed.
10. sunshine.
11. holding hands.
12. music.
13. a good meal.
14. good lyrics, a beautiful poem or an inspiring piece of prose... basically an instance when language is used to it's fullest potential.
15. Fall, when the leaves die.