natural disasters.

Sometimes terrible things happen on perfect days. The first warm and sunny day after a punishing winter doesn't care how bad you need some good news, it's just a system of pressure and circumstance. Of science. And sometimes, it is the good news.

 

It never happens like this in the movies, but sometimes you hear your new favorite song on a day cloudy and 42 degrees. Sometimes the salt stains and dirty snow are in various states of melting and soaking into the earth and it's ugly. Maybe we're more open to new favorite songs on the sunny days, but a true gem will shine no matter the conditions outside your window.

 

I was on the bus the first time Tegan and Sara's "Where Does the Good Go?" came on my ipod shuffle. It was crowded on the bus and winter and I didn't want to be going to class, my hands were cold because I forgot my gloves and lord only knows the last time I'd managed to bathe. It was one of the worst moments of my life, hearing that song for the first time with strangers jammed in all around me, not giving a shit that my poor little heart was crumbling. It's still one of my favorite songs.

 

Yeah, maybe we're nothing more than the sum of those little moments that stick to our ribs.

 

Or maybe we are.

 

Who am I to say?

 

Anyway, today is beautiful, so probably nothing terribly significant will happen.

 

Except that my wonderful boyfriend got called out in the middle of the night and so this morning I had a delicious surprise from the bakery down the street waiting for me.

 

I guess that's pretty significant.

returned.

So, I've safely returned to the Midwest.

I made it through the hellish initial travel day, the three hour long interview where I am in competition with at least 30 other people for eight spots, and, despite missing my 8am first flight toward home Sunday, I did make it home, albeit not until 11pm.

And here I am sitting in my cubicle, doing my work or at least pretending to, just as it was before I left. Nothing has changed, really. I don't know. Nothing has changed. But everything feels different. Sitting there on Saturday, surrounded by mountains, getting to know more about this city that I'd only been to once before, becoming excited at the idea of making a life there, it makes everything feel different. It's getting to be that scary period where you've committed to something in your mind, but you don't have to follow through yet because it's still out of your hands, but not much time is left until the baton is passed and you've got to decide to run or just let it hang there loose until it falls and you stay in place.

If I get in, I'm moving to Montana. That's where I am.


It's just, I've been standing still, waiting or paralyzed or unsure for too long now. I'm worried that if I don't take off at a sprint, I'll be stuck in this state of complacency forever. It's sort of an exciting breed or terrifying to place myself in a landscape so starkly different from what I'm accustomed to. At the same time, Missoula isn't tiny or lacking in modern comforts. But it is so, so different. I think I need that. Everyone I met there was just so happy to be there. People want to stay. They want to enjoy the natural resources that surround them, they want to do what they can to preserve them. Such a simple concept. So different from the shithole suburbs and cities I've forced myself into, surrounded by people I can't stand.

You know what I think of when I think about moving to Montana? I think about driving out there alone. Loading up my car and streaking across the flat lands and prairies in a blurred line of speed. I think about feeling the spetrum of emotions that I am capable of from the full impact of making such a radical decision. Of banging on the steering wheel and scream-singing along to every genre my ipod and cds represent. There could be tears as I stride across Iowa. I could blow kisses to everyone I pass in the Dakotas. You never know. I could go off route on purpose just to find my way back. It's definitely a trek I'm planning on taking by myself.

Another thing. Yesterday I flew into Salt Lake City for the third or fourth time. This was the first time I really looked out the window as we made our descent. Now, my whole life, I read things and I'll cry, I'll hear music and attach myself to it's meaning and sound and I'll feel so much. But I've never really been all that emotional when it comes to seeing things. Sure, I love a good landscape, relish in peering at the mountains, but it's not really moving, just more enjoyable, favorable. But flying over the Great Salt Lake, I've never seen anything so magnificent. I'm not kidding. This massive body of water is shrouded by mountains and god, the water is every color imaginable. It was really something. Just. God. Really something. Bigger than I thought it could be. Like something from Never Never land.. If I ever make it that way, the lake alone would make it hard to leave again.

I love the water.


What else? In the interview they asked us what animal we would be right then, if we could be anything. Also, our favorite books and movies. One girl said she'd be a golden eagle, I liked her. She had blonde curly hair that she was constantly in a state of flux with having up or down. I said I'd be a river otter and they said that was the first time anyone had said that and then the guy right after me stared at me in almost confusion and said he was going to say that too. I believed him. I liked him. I liked everyone, though. Everyone seemed smart and eager to do well. One lady said her favorite movie was The Blair Witch Project... kind of weird if you ask me. We were on couches for that question and she was probably in her 50s wearing a too-short skirt and had one leg tucked up underneath her. You could see down her skirt. I felt awkward for her. She was a large woman. Honestly, I wish I had a better idea of what they were looking for. Everyone was smart. I liked my answers and didn't let myself be nervous and was just myself. I laughed my real laugh, so I must have been comfortable.

We drove to Idaho through a mountain pass on Saturday and the drive was terrifying because there was a ton of snow and my friend Counrtey is a wild driver, but we made it unscathed to this trailhead that leads to some natural hot springs. Oh my god, one of the coolest experiences. The sensation of being enveloped in warm water in the middle of a freezing stream in the mountains in the winter with snow all around was almost like being in a scene from a book or a movie. Just surreal. We stayed about an hour and a half, until we were sufficiently pruney, and then hiked the mile or so back to the truck. Just a normal day for people who make their lives there. I'd go all the time.

Flying back to Indiana after missing my morning flight because I overslept which had to do with a sing a long that lasted until at least 4 am.... was depressing. Not just to be leaving there and coming back to my life and my job here. But just looking at the people travelling to Indy. So much less interesting to me than the people travelling west. I didn't speak to anyone on my way back. It was the least I could do as a form of protest.

I got into this book I'm reading on my last flight and this little passage struck me so hard. You know, just knocked the wind right out of me. Isn't it wild how the Universe times things? Isn't it wild how an arrangement of words can take on so much meaning? Stop me I'm getting carried away. Here it is:

"The worst thing, she would tell him, is that she can no longer distinguish stars: When I think I have found one it moves out of view, just metal in orbit or a transportation vehicle. There are no longer fixed points by which to determine my direction, she would tell him. How can I ever make a wish?"

That's some kind of loss. Now I want to meet the writer and climb into her head and see what she saw in order to come up with something so lovely. Yeah, creepy. I know, I know.

So that was my trip. The best kind of heartbreaking. I'm glad to be home and not glad to be home. I think maybe as we get older that only gets worse. Or maybe that's just my outlook right now

I'm almost an aunt!

Here we are at Friday again. Could be worse, right?

For the past few weeks, whenever I look down, the fly of my pants is down. We're talking all the way. Now, for the life of me, I can't figure out if I'm not remembering to zip it up, a task that I'd assumed I've pretty much mastered in the past 25 years- OR- If every single pair of pants that I own has a faulty zipper that insists on slipping down.

It's one of those "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" type questions that not even Siri can answer.

Damn it, Siri.

Last week Matt thought it would be really funny to be like "Siri, I just ran over someone with my car, what do I do?"

To which Siri, in her infinite wisdom, was like, "Sara, I'm calculating your location now." Because apparently she can't tell the difference between our voices. Stupid Siri. Anyway, THAT was one of the most singularly stressful moments of my life since we were SITTING ON THE COUCH in our home. Luckily, the cops never showed up and surrounded the place or anything. Then again, maybe Siri was just bluffing. What if I really HAD run over someone?

Actually, I probably wouldn't think to consult Siri in that scenario.


I wish Siri would remind me to zip up my fly.


Enough about Siri, though.


TOMORROW IS MY SISTER'S BABY SHOWER.

She's measuring 'ready to pop any time' according to the doctors even though she's technically supposed to have five weeks left. So that's cool, maybe this little nug will make an appearance sooner than later.

Last night I went over to my parents' house to help my mother prepare/decorate for Saturday and she reveals to me that she's "Not actually convinced there aren't two babies in there."

I mean, the woman has had four babies, plus mama knows best, right?

The results remain to be seen.

As for me, I'm just psyched for the free mani/pedis, copious amounts of wine, and chocolate fountain.

Oh, and the baby too, of course.

Happy Weekending!

five steps ahead

In a week and a half I'm going to board a plane and zoom across a vast and expansive portion of the United States before I touch down again in Montana.

 

I'm going back to Montana for the second time in three months. My fourth time visiting.

 

Why?

 

Because I made it through the initial application phase and onto the interview phase of my graduate school admissions crusade.  

 

Which means at this point, my dreams are still alive. Which is nice.

 

I wasn't going to say anything here because I didn't want to jinx what I see as good luck and I don't want to have to report back if I come this far and get turned down.

 

But I need to say something, because with a prospective possibility as large as moving to Montana looming large on the horizon, it's almost impossible to think about anything else.

 

As it stands, I only sent in two grad school applications. I still have two more on the back-burner, awaiting submission. (They're not due until May 15th, which seems ridiculously late, but whatever.) Both of the schools I applied to have granted me interviews, which, quite frankly, was more than I was expecting. The first one is via skype, on Monday.

 

It's hard to put into words in any sort of productive way how frustrating, difficult, stagnant, and stuck the past two years have made me feel, although I've bitched and complained and tried to make sense of it often here. Now that there is once again that flicker of possibility and change and growth, I'm ready to shout it from the rooftops.

 

Except it's not time yet, and now that I've grown up a little there are so many things to consider all of the sudden.

 

Before, when choosing a college or a summer job, or a new place to live, I just went for it. I'd take it. No problem, no questions, no matter the distance.

 

But now, my sister is having a baby, I'm going to be an aunt for the first time. My brother is playing college football here. My grandma is suffering from Parkinson's and is within driving distance. My boyfriend's family lives here. Hell, my boyfriend lives here.

 

But that doesn't change that I don't want to be here.

 

It doesn't change the fact that I still feel pulled to wild places, to mountains. To the next great adventure into the unknown, something just outside my reach. I wouldn't be myself if I didn't hold those yearnings at the core of my being.

 

Maybe it's a little early to be thinking this way, I haven't even interviewed yet, after all. Maybe only time will tell and in the end it won't even be my choice to make. 

 

But I've never been able to stop my mind from jumping five steps ahead.   

i've created a monster.

For Christmas this year, I got Matt beer brewing supplies. Kits, tubes, a huge glass jug, a plastic bucket, a book and beer making ingredients among the rest of the stuff that came with it.

We both like beer, we both drink beer, we've been really into micro brews for the past year or two, so why wouldn't he enjoy the creation stage? I totally psyched myself up while I was making the purchases.

In all reality, it was kind of a wild-card gift. I wasn't 100% sure how he'd take to it, and even as he opened the boxes, I felt a little nervous. Beer brewing is very involved, it takes a lot of research and the brewer has to be very meticulous with cleaning every instrument, watching temperature, measuring, etc. It's hard work. Basically all the stuff I pay to no attention to in my own daily free time.
Anyway, I was a little nervous. Especially since Matt is like the #1 world's best gift giver. For instance, for Valentines Day he gave me a first edition of my favorite book, Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume. WHO DOES THAT?! He knows me so well it's astounding at times.

So he opened the box on Christmas and seemed happy enough. And then the box sat in the middle of our bedroom floor for almost a month completely forgotten. And I grew a little more nervous.

I shouldn't have been.

Matt has become a brewer obsessed, and I say that in the nicest, most loving way possible, since I'll be reaping the benefits of his labor.

Since he's started this little hobby, it's beer all the time. We've gone to various home-brew stores, I catch him on beer forums, and he's constantly writing up word documents with his latest and greatest ideas for the next batch.

He's got three different kinds of beer going right now and one ready to drink. This weekend we bottled the second batch of beer. We stamped the cap on like 30 more beers. It's a really intense process.

So basically, we're up to our ears in beer.

Like, lots and lots and lots of beers. And he's already talking about what he's going to make for the summer!

WE HARDLY EVEN DRINK DURING THE WEEK. And by we I mean him. And usually me.


Basically, what I'm say here is that beer has overtaken my boyfriend. And not even because he's drinking too much of it.... but because he's really into the science of it.

Nerd Alert.

this would be Matt, pouring our very first bottle of beer into glasses for a trial. (it was actually pretty good)

So yeah, I've created a monster.

i am just LOVING this song.

It's just perfect for this Saturday afternoon champagne haze.

how to piss yourself off.

 Ponder the compartmentalization of your emotions in the shower. Wonder if you actually feel anything for anyone. Lament the fact that no one you've ever been super close to has died tragically. Feel instant guilt.

 

Compartmentalize it.

 

Remember yesterday in your cubicle. The married dude with the new baby walked by your desk. Remember the instant you realized this had spurred you to fix and fuss over your hair. You don't even like that guy. And he didn't even look over at you.  He probably listens to Dave Matthews.  And remember that time he showed up in front of you with an ultrasound picture like a year ago and thrust it at you without saying anything?

 

Awkward.

 

He never makes a fresh pot of coffee when he pours himself the rest. Rude. Annoying.

 

You don't want to be the type of woman who primps because people are looking at her. Or even at the prospect of someone looking at you.

 

No one is looking at you.

 

Wonder if catching yourself in the act makes you more or less self aware than the people around you. Arrive at the conclusion of more.

 

Feel a little pleasure at this conclusion.

 

Realize you've just wasted your time thinking about this, when you should have been thinking about any of the 2383897 more pressing issues in your life.

 

Worry instead about the wrinkles you contributed to by squinting the way you always do when thinking about yourself unfavorably.

 

Arrive at yet another conclusion, you're vain.

 

And you annoy yourself.

 

Happy Thursday.