The Rice Bowl

Don't Slow Down

There's a box where I keep every letter I've received.  Underneath it is a pile of letters I've written to no one in particular, they've never been sent.  They're waiting, sealed in silence, their secrets kept tight in their adhesive.  The box is covered in words.  Words that speak, to me.  "This is where.Make your mark.Planes, trains, and chasing cars.Tell a captivating story.Beginnings.Blog.Reclaim the girl you left behind.Love notes.Music.Discontent.Visionary.Welcome to the jungle.Lost.Daisy.Smart.Secret Life. When you're smiling.Style.Touch.Trouble.London Calling.Morning Rescue.Never Hide."

Never Hide.

Every word is a part of me.  But "Never Hide", its an affirmation.  It's a reminder.  It's a lesson and a lecture.  One day, maybe I won't need the words on a box to affirm this in me, daily.

Once, I read a letter that I had written, years ago, in complete reckless abandon to what my heart felt could be love.  It was stupid.  It was sweet.  It was beautiful and heartbreaking.  It was like watching the replay of a car crash, where everyone miraculously lives, in slow motion.  It was beautiful, even the destruction.  In retrospect it was.  During, it was...horribly broken.  It was nice to know that I was capable of silly girlish love though.  Maybe I'll find that again?

Tomorrow I turn a year older.  Magically.  Like someone snapped their fingers and it just happened.  I'm always filled with thoughts about life, plans, loves.  This year, I think about my parents.  My two best friends.  The two people who have been there to stand up for me.  The two people that dealt with my tears over falling off a bicycle, a broken teddy bear, mean girls in the neighbourhood, a jealous boy, impossible loads of homework and countless cups of coffee, broken hearts, and leaving home.  Where would I be without them?  I would definitely not be me.  I got lucky.  I feel like I won the DNA lottery with my parents.  My only struggle this year is finding any words at all (are there even any?) to express my gratitude to them for being, not only the best role models, but the closest friends I could ever ask for.

A year older.  365 days older.  7665 days of life (give or take).  Wow.  They've been good ones.  Ones filled with more thoughts than you can imagine.  Ones filled with more insane experiences, good and bad, than most receive in a lifetime.  I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.  I'm busting open the champagne and celebrating every triumph, trial, and failure with a smile and a toast.  But most of all, I'm celebrating with a hope, a wish, a dream, that one day, I might figure out a little more about me, or someone else might and be able to share it with me.

If I've learned anything in this life, it is this: I am not my own.

So now, more than ever, as I face another year, the words are clear.  Never hide.  Never hide, because that's how you miss things.  Things that define who you are.  People who help you find what defines you.

21, you're going to be a good year.

I Know Nothing Stays the Same...

I have a friend.  He happens to be my best friend in the whole world.  I've known him since...well, I don't remember.  Every memory I seem to have, somehow, contains him.

He sat in forts made out of bed sheets and dining room chairs with me while we read Green Eggs and Ham to each other.  He knew where all my secret hiding places were, and of course, he was the prefered friend to all my imaginary ones.  We sat in a garage together (which was really a beach) on a towel and under an umbrella while the rain poured outside.  We dove under the covers with a flash light and read Harry Potter books while silently gasping at all the right moments.  He was the first person I told when I fell in love with the boy who lived down the street.  He contains every thing that seems to compile what it is to be me.

Sure, he's had some rough times.  The leather that once covered his nose has long rubbed away.  His eyes are almost always covered by his matted fur.  The holes in his paws seem to get bigger by the day, and, well, I'm the only one that can tell that he has a smile, still.  He's been thrown in suitcases and backpacks and dragged across the globe.  His passport is as thick as mine.  He's soaked up more tears than anyone can ever know and he's battled the washing machine many times.

Horrifyingly, his head fell off one night while I ran to my parent's bed, sick with a fever.  I climbed into the bed only to discover my best friend's body was missing.  Distraught, I ran out of the room into the corridor where his lifeless corpse lay, headless.  My mum promised to sew him back together, but I think it took a good hour before I had finally cried myself to sleep, needing my friend to comfort me when I was ill.  After that day his head seemed to roll off every now and then and the hole in his neck seemed permanent until we had him professionally reconstructed.

3 years ago, an airport security guard pulled him from my arms and violated him in front of me.  Tears stung my eyes and when the disgruntled guard was finally satisfied that he wasn't some drug smuggling hippie, the guard received a few angry words from me notifying him that if I had been 10 years younger he'd have had a huge problem on his hands.  The ordeal was scarring for the both of us, to say the least.

As a birthday draws nearer, for both of us, he's the piece of home that I cling to.  He's every memory that I know of and I cannot help but think, he'll still be there for whatever is to come.  He'll still be the one that I confess my secrets to, sitting in my room, waiting for me to sit on my bed with him.  I'm sure I have more tears for him to dry, we have more adventures to share, and more secrets to tell.

I don't ever want to be a grown up.

Took the time to write down all my thoughts.

Yesterday, I pulled a college student day.  I've been known to be a ridiculous procrastinator on so many things in my life--school work very much included.  However, since moving to Portland and starting fresh, I've been very focused and really good with my school work, until recently.

I hate research papers.  Let me explain this.  I hate the research part of research papers.  I have so many high school flashbacks of breaking down in tears in front of the computer at 3 am because the Great Firewall of China had struck once again.  To this day, I have nightmares about my internet connection shutting down because of the wrong phrase typed into Google all for a school assignment.  Yes, yes, I know that I am free of those restrictions, but I still hate it.  Research papers tend to leave me with the overwhelming feeling that I could have written so much more because there was so much more information I could have used but never got around to.  Research papers are daunting.

Don't get me wrong, I can write an amazing research paper, and given the right topic, I can somewhat enjoy the topic.  But there's a reason I decided to drop the science major, and there it is.

My writing class was assigned a research paper a few weeks ago.  The catch?  The topic we chose had to be a current international issue...and we were allowed only ONE internet source.  Sure, I understand the stipulations of this.  This is a lesson in using resources out side of Wikipedia and that third grade web report on George Washington.  But, of course, I chose a topic I wouldn't be bored to tears with and had no chance of being duplicated by any of my fellow classmates.  I chose to write on the effects that blogging has had on the media industry.  Of course, this topic limited my offline resources severely, and I knew this.

So, I avoided it like the plague.

While avoiding this paper like SARS, I contracted my own illness.  Irony, awesome.  I spent the last couple weeks running into the doctors with my mystery illness and the rest was spent paying more attention to what was wrong with me, rather than what was due.  On Monday my mystery pain was finally diagnosed, and the sudden realization that I hadn't even looked at this paper let alone started it hit me and I scrambled to find my original proposal for the essay.

In a move filled with awesomeness, I entered the library 7 hours before the research paper was due, emptied the bookshelves dealing with blogging, the internet, ethics, and journalistic media forms.  And there I sat for 7 hours, reading, highlighting, copying, typing, sourcing, and contmeplating taking a nap on floor.  But I got it done without completely wanting to kill myself or shred the books infront of me.  Success.

But I noticed something during my time spent scouring the bookshelves and flipping through pages; I miss libraries.  I've always found comfort in sitting between the stacks and flipping through some volume from the past.  I love the smell of books.  I love the delapedated covers from the 60's that stare back at me.  I love the idea that someone else read the same book I posess and that they were standing in the same place I am when taking it from the shelf.  I love searching for a book from the call number on the spine; it's like detective's work.

When I was at school in Hawaii, the library was massive, but it was also...unwelcoming.  The library was being remodled while was at school and it was never truly and completely peaceful.  The books were being placed in boxes and everything in the place felt incomplete and missing.  Not to mention, the school was small and when you live on campus, you know everyone.  People constantly came over to talk to you in the library, to say 'hi'.  It wasn't a place where you could lose yourself.  You couldn't sit in the stacks because someone would come by for a chat or the spines of the books you ran your fingers over were screaming for their missing counterparts, burried somewhere within a box, remembered only by their barcodes.  The windows were tinted, the flouresent lights were blinding and the air conditioner was set far too low.  The place was cold and dark, and not in a welcoming way.

When I sat in the confines of the Rock Creek library yesterday, I wan't affected by the atmosphere in a negative way.  I fell in love with the library's book collection last term when I found myself reading Dostoyevsky infront of Shakespeare (there's something brilliantly beautiful about that moment).  The library is open and bright, inviting, warm, beautiful.  The frustrated kids frantically flipping through their books, don't look that frustrated after all.  The library has couches, and ample outlets for laptops in the desks.

But here's my favourite part.  Lamps.  The library contains personal lamps at every desk, rather than depending upon the harsh, loud light of flourecents.  They're primary light source are the 180 degree floor to ceiling windows and sky lights.  Beautiful.

Plus, it helps that I don't know anyone on campus well enough to hold a conversation with.

I think I've found my new inspirational sanctuary, and that makes me giddy inside

Brandy Alexander

There's something about red wine that makes you feel like a jazz singer.  I'm sitting here, half a bottle into some delicious Merlot and I can't help but sing and sway to the sounds of Feist. 

Yes, indeed, it is Valentines evening.  I've never had an issue with Valentine's day, until I moved back to the States.  Never have I seen another grossly capitalized non-holiday, save Halloween.  Oh, you may argue St. Paddy's, but honestly, that is a holiday that all can enjoy.  However, Valentines.  Hmm.  I remember being in the 9th grade, walking down the halls of the prison in which I spent 7 hours Monday thru Friday with my fellow cell mates whom I never truly got along with, save a few.  Where was I?  Oh.  Countless lockers and giggly girls were found up and down the halls, covered in hearts and sparkles, balloons and red.  Why?  What was it about this day?  To this day, I still don't understand.

Rather than contemplate my loneliness on this night, which I do so well on all other nights, I've embraced the holiday.  I go out, and I give in.  I buy flowers, ice cream, wine.  The cashier gives me a wry smile as I check out with my goods, believing that I have some grandious plans for this night.  And, yes, I do.  My plans include having flowers by my side to greet me in the morning, drinking all the wine, eating all the ice cream and passing out watching some sort of ridiculousness on television.  Or, blogging, half a bottle into my red.

This isn't every night.  I don't get to do this every day.  This day, this day is special because I get to.  Because everyone else is acting like fools, I feel that I get to have a piece of the pie by singing into my phone and pretending for a moment that I am singing away everyone's blues in some slinky jazz club, called my kitchen.  Yes, I'm singing off key, but my audience doesn't know that, so shh.  And in the morning, I will wake up and wonder why I have a bruise on my hip and why my head hurts so much and why I have The OC theme song stuck in my head.

There's a song that's been in my head and it's been pretty.  He's my Brandy Alexander, always gets me into trouble, but that's another matter.  Brandy Alexander.  Tonight, I'm pretending that Brandy Alexander and I are getting into trouble, singing up a storm in the kitchen and forgetting where the corkscrew went.

I've found that it's okay to feel sexy with a bottle of wine, and no one else around.

Happy Valentine's day.