you.

Ready? Ready set go. Here's a tour of our life. In a blur, speed lines trailing behind, all lit up like fiber optics. This is not an exhaustive history. God, I'm exhausted. Don't expect any order, you know I'm not a linear thinker. I remember everything, I promise.

You know all about my freakish memory. You were there when I gave the maid of honor toast at my sister's wedding. My first memory, clear as day, was the day she was born. I stood there, teetering a little, champagne in hand, and tried to hold my voice steady as I told 500 people what I'd never just managed to tell my baby sister. How pivotal she is to my existence. How much I love her. That meeting her was the first thing to gain enough traction to stick into my developing mind. I wasn't even three years old. You were there for that speech. You were sitting right next to me. You were a groomsman that day. You were part of my sister's wedding. You were my date and my backbone. You squeezed my hand and smiled at me afterward and that's how I knew I hadn't fucked it up. I nailed it. What a relief. You are the relief. You're the check-in. I swear if I tried to have that procedure from Eternal Sunshine to delete you, the past ten years of my life would be gone. Glaring, gaping, empty you-shaped holes. I remember everything.

This one wasn't that long ago. We were together, at least. You'd send me pictures of the turtles you rescued from the middle of the street while you were driving around on country roads for work. You're so stoic most of the time, you know. Damn it, like the only thing you had feelings for in abundance was me. You're a softy, though. You saved those little guys, couldn't bear the thought of their shiny bodies becoming speed bumps for some soccer mom or idiot teenager driving too fast. Any person that pulls over to the side of the road to rescue a turtle on a hot summer day, that's a person I want to know. That's a person I want to associate with. Then again, I would have loved you anyway. I already did. 

Things are weird, and I don't know how to deal with it or make it better, but the distance between us has never been greater. It's an abyss and we're standing on opposite edges and I can't even shout across it. It feels cold. Mostly I associate the time before we were together as summer, but this memory, this one is chilly, dreary, gray.  I'm 22. You're dating Her. She 'knows how you used to feel' about me, so we don't really spend time together anymore. Not like we used to, driving around aimlessly for hours every night whenever I blew through town. But for some reason you agree to meet me and we go to McDonald's and glance awkwardly at each other and push food around on our paper wrappers. Not a whole lot of eye contact is happening. We're not laughing. I hate it when we're not laughing. I'm trying to talk about anything but Her, and you seem to be doing the same thing. We've got all these things we can talk about, anything, really. But we're not saying a lot and it's excruciating. The last time we hung out we both got drunk. And we kissed. And you crashed on my parent's couch. We stayed up watching shitty reality shows all night because at least we were spending time together. That was right around the time you met Her. Whoops. We go to a store after we eat, like a warehouse with junk and trinkets and statues and shit. You buy Her a little porcelain unicorn. Actually, you forget your wallet, so I buy her the goddamn unicorn. I drive you back to your car. You get in it and drive away. It feels like a punch to the gut when you don't even look back. You always look back. I've really made a mess of things this time.

We're driving to Nashville with D. All of us are under 21, I'm probably 19. We have my friend M buy us a bunch of cases of cheap beer and we hit the road. You guys drive three hours out of the way to come get me. God, you drove to come get me so many times from school. Remember that New Years Day when we cooked breakfast and I scrubbed the confetti stains out of the linoleum with bleach? That was the first time I ever saw you wear shorts. Your skin was so pale it looked otherworldly. We walked to the grocery store, which was mercifully open, and when we got back you whipped up hashbrowns soaked in beer while we listened to Sunday Morning Coming Down on repeat. But that's not part of this memory, fuck. It's just a splinter sticking out of it. I probably owe you $4000 in gas money from all the times you would just come and get me, just know I needed rescued for a day, night, weekend, however long it took until I could handle that place again. On this trip we're driving to Nashville and having exhausted the pitifully small amount of music we can all agree on, I'm forcing you to listen to Brand New. We thought the trip was going to take three hours, but we're on hour eight now. You've let me drive this gigantic diesel truck you borrowed from your uncle through a narrow construction zone, which was terrifying but made me feel like a badass. D didn't get to drive it. Now I'm back in the passenger seat. We've made D sit in the backseat because it's an unspoken agreement that the front seat is mine in any car of yours, regardless of the fact that you guys have been friends since you were five. We've been in the car so long that I'm starting to get loopy. Like, crawling-up-the-walls slap happy. I'm being so ridiculous that you're both looking at me like I'm an animal that has escaped from the zoo. I unleached, I fully unleached the crazy. And you took it. You just took it. Our first kiss was the weekend. We slept in a half-constructed tent in the rain in a campsite that was really only made for RVs. And then you drove me back to school and drove away. One of us is always leaving the other, it seems.

You're whiskey drunk and I'm really skinny. Depression-chic, from my breakup. It's J's going away party and we're down at IU drinking and carrying on, a bunch of us. The usuals. Some randos. Why am I not at school? Maybe it hasn't started yet. OSU started so much later than anyplace else. Your hair is long and stringy and I'm flirting with everyone. We're avoiding each other because you want to be with me and I know it and I've still got a broken heart from the guy I dated my first two years in college. You made it really hard to love him, but somehow I still did. It's my first real heartbreak so I feel like I'm bracing for impact on a moment-to-moment basis, my entire person is bruised, my entire essence feels whip-lashed and battered. But I feel pretty tonight. I'm tan and I'm wearing my favorite jeans and oh my god am I fucking thin. I feel like I'm attracting everyone. But not you. I'm avoiding an inevitable stand off. Suddenly your face is in my face and you're angry at me. You're shouting "I'm in love with you! Don't you fucking understand that? I am in love with you and there's nothing I can do about it!" And I'm getting angry because you're so drunk and causing a scene and now everyone knows you're in love with me and I'm the girl who refuses to love you back. I just keep yelling "I'm sorry," like I'm a bitch and don't mean it because you're pissing me off right now. Except, you know, I do love you back. I just can't do it. I just don't know how to be with you yet. I so didn't want to be the villian tonight. I was avoiding this confrontation with you. It has found me head-on anyway. I say I'm sorry some more and you storm off into the trees. I let you go. I have no idea what to say to you. You tear through the house when my high school boyfriend shows up with a bunch of weed, you hate him. You break the shower curtain rod in half and punch a hole in the wall and start throwing shit around when you find out I'm in there smoking with him. D looks at me like "Well, this is your problem. You did this." So I corral you into the bathroom and talk to you softly and hold your hair and rub your back when you vomit. Which you do, a lot. I put you into D's bed and crawl in next to you. When I wake up, you're sitting in the computer chair next to the bed with a blanket wrapped around you. It must have been too hard to lay so close to something you couldn't have. It broke my heart to hurt yours. It always has.

We're driving, god, we drove a lot. We're driving and I'm scratching the back of your head. You know the spot. The one you love. I'm running my fingers through your hair and we both wearing sunglasses. God I hated those sunglasses of yours. We're in the Chevy Aveo we rented for the weekend. You're in a great mood. We're on our way to St. Louis because I bought you tickets to see the Phillies for your birthday, months ago. For once I felt like a did really well on a gift for you, our seats are going to be killer. Usually on long car trips we've been getting into tiffs and spending a lot of time in a pissed-off silence. Not today. Today the weather is beautiful and we're going on vacation and we're in love. If you hadn't been driving I would have climbed into your lap and curled up in the warmth of the feeling. We make jokes at each other and talk about what we're going to do while we're in this new strange city. We're getting along, it feels like it has been so long since that happened, since it was easy. It's like we were best friends again. I could cry thinking about that moment. I'm crying thinking about that day. Fuck.

We've both smoked eight swisher sweets. We're cruising around singing duets together and trying to get lost on the country roads. Sometimes we succeed. We hit a huge puddle and we both scream. The engine gets wet and stream starts pouring out of the hood, so you stop the car. We get out of the car in the middle of nowhere and both walk up to the front, headlights still on. You're wearing a Phillies shirt that is too small and we're both looking up at the zillions of stars in the sky. All I want in this moment is for you to kiss me. The moment passes. We don't even touch. We slide back into our seats and practice blowing smoke out of our noses. We're probably old enough to drink, but we're not drinking. Kind of like that Christmas night when we kidnapped D and made him drive around with us until four in the morning. We kept fucking with him and we wouldn't let him fall asleep, which is what he tried to do when he realized that despite his pleas, we were not going to take him home. It was snowing and night time and we drove around the deserted downtown streets talking in Australian accents, cracking up at each other and our conspiring against D. Poor guy, he's such an easy target and we're an unbeatable team. But the cigars, we sit and practice smoking them in the Kroger parking lot. It is just what we did that summer. I'd wake up and my pillow would have that sweet tobacco lingering all over it. I'd be taken back for a moment to the night before while I was still balancing on that tightrope between awake and asleep. Being with you was so easy, effortless. It made me so happy to not have to work for it.

I am the designated driver for you and D tonight, which never happens, so the novelty of it actually makes me not mind watching all of you drink all night. It's T's birthday and we go to this bar his family owns in this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere that I've never been to before. It's dark and I'm just part of the caravan driving out there, so that's easy enough. It's a dive bar, which is fun. You're all drinking whiskey and having a good time and we make D go up and dance with some random middle aged woman. Pictures are snapped. The Skunk Holler Band comes on and more people are dancing. I do one shot of whiskey with you guys when we first get there, but mostly I'm laughing a lot and taking it all in. This wannabe cowboy from high school somehow shows up and asks me to dance. I say no at first, but eventually acquiesce. I'm not a good dancer. I'm talking to this guy uncomfortably, he's being too forward, thinking about how I'm going to make fun of him to you when this song is over. I glance over at you and we lock eyes. You storm out. I could leave him standing there, I know you're mad at me and I should go smooth things over. But part of me is just a little pissed off. I'm not your girl. I'm just a girl. I'm just your friend. You don't get to throw fits every time I talk to another guy.  Eventually the song ends and I walk out into the warm night and you're leaning against the building, a lot more drunk than I thought you were. It wasn't much after that when you stopped drinking whiskey all together. It doesn't do good things to you. I step toward you and you're seething, you're so angry. We're not really talking, but suddenly you're yelling and you punch the wire cage that holds propane tanks. The sound is high and hollow. It's broken, your hand, I know it instantly. You've got to stop punching things when you're mad at me. You cradle your mangled limb in the other arm and that is when I know it's time to go home, wherever that is right now. I wrangle D and get you both into the car. You're on the passenger side whimpering and fading in and out of consciousness. I play all of our songs and sing my parts at the top of my lungs to try to keep you awake. D is saying asinine things in the back seat and I'm ignoring him. I'm kind of lost because I've never been here before, so I'm leaning forward, gripping your steering wheel and squinting into the darkness. When I finally see something familiar I almost shout for the relief of it.  I don't know why I have this effect on you. I don't understand it. I'm nothing special to anyone else.

I walk in the door and throw my keys on the shelf. The dog bounds up to me, all 150 pounds of her at full force. I give her the obligatory hello scratch and head to the bathroom to wash my hands. I'm so allergic that if I forget to wash my hands I'll be hitting my inhaler in less than five minutes. But we're living together, so I'm making it work. I'm getting allergy shots every week and she's not allowed in our bedroom. It's working. I come into the kitchen and you're making bacon, back turned to me. You're making dinner. Our dinner. I bury my head in your neck and shoulder and you turn to me, bear hug me, crack my back, kiss me hello. You taste like the sun has been beaming on your face all day. Burning sunshine. We have our routine, and it's good. You cook dinner, we watch our shows and hang out for a few hours until I go to sleep or go read. We're building a life of sorts, I never realized how much of everything we have to make up as we go along. Right now, it feels good. 

I'm drunk, again. And I've been smoking cigarettes, which is going to cause a major argument. Something is wrong with me but I can't explain it to you because I don't even understand it. Getting drunk with Erin on random Tuesdays after work feels good, though, and not a whole lot else does right now. I get home and you're in front of the TV and I know it's bad because only your eyes move to look at me when I come in the door. Usually you look at me with your whole body, especially if you haven't seen me in several hours. You're angry. I figure I should maybe try to disguise a little bit of the drinking and smoking, so I just run into the bathroom really fast like I've been holding my pee in for three days. I'm fully aware that we both know I'm not fooling anyone. But at least I'm trying. I jump in the shower and brush my teeth and when I get out, you're in bed with the light out. You don't turn to me when I get into bed and it scares me a little. What am I doing to us? Why am I doing it? 

I am twenty five and we went to a wedding last night, which means I'm hungover as fuck and you're driving my car back in the direction of home. It's been an okay morning, rehashing last night's events and saying goodbye to my college friends. I was a bridesmaid. I had an awesome hair day. All was well. We woke up in a bed with a feather comforter that felt like a cloud. It was luxurious. The night before the wedding we stayed in a smarmy motel by the airport because it was cheap, but that wasn't even too bad either. We just really get along well when we stay in hotels. It's probably the sex in a different environment. Whatever, it's been a good weekend. But as soon as we get into the car, I am unable to function. I insist that I am dying the way that I always do when I have too much to drink the night before and you matter-of-factly inform me that I am not, in fact, dying. The way you always do. Something in that transaction always makes me feel better, like you really know me and still care enough to placate me on the most basic level. I demand we stop for provisions and you run in to the gas station to get me beverages. When you come back out, you've procured me no less than four different drinks. Because you know me. Because you know how I get when I get too thirsty and I don't have exactly what I need to quench it, which is bratty and insolent. With the right person, even feeling like you're dying doesn't have to be the worst thing. 

I haven't told you that T and I are back together and I have no idea how I am going to break the news. It's summer and I went back up to the island after graduation even though I knew it wasn't the right choice. It was what I wanted, so I did it. That's pretty much how everything happens for me which means I'm a pretty selfish person. You came to my graduation, drove three hours with my two best girlfriends, who you barely know, to see me for a couple of hours, sit in a sweltering stadium for an afternoon, and hang out with my family. T dumped me three days before my graduation because he didn't want to have to buy new clothes or meet my grandparents. Still, this is who I am choosing to give my heart completely. You already know my grandparents. You already know everyone. You already love me back. Anyway, T and I are back together, or at least we're sleeping in the same bed every night and hanging out with the same group of friends at the same time, which we were basically doing anyway, just with a much more tense flavor to it. Anyway, you've just driven five hours to come and see me. M is here too, you both decided to visit at the same time, which is great, but a little weird too because I won't be able to fully devote my attention to either one of you. Plus I've got this boyfriend who really isn't that nice to me, but for some reason I believe him every time he promises he's going to change. You hate him already. God, you're the best teammate. If it's ever the end of the world and we have to pick teams, you're the first person I'm going to pick. You're so loyal. You meet him and it's awkward and I force him to come to dinner and I can tell the instant it dawns on you that we're together. You close up completely. You're already shy, but now there is no getting in. Luckily T is underage, so at least you and M and I can go out to the bars together, just the three of us. I feel so horrid about not telling you that I am back together with T that I get stupendously drunk. You try to come upstairs with me to help me get my shit together and get into bed, and suddenly my boyfriend has his first moment of semi-lucid chivalry in the entire course of our relationship. He asserts his dominance or desire to act in the role of caregiver and I wake up the next morning next to him. He told me years later that he always felt intimidated by you, even when I'd only bring you up in casual conversation. Sometimes people just know when they're outranked. You decide to leave earlier than expected, so I drive you to the ferry in my friend J's car, half drunk again. You confront me about T and I brush you off, give some bullshit excuse about it being easier than being mad at someone I have to deal with every day. I can't bear to tell you that I'm so in love with him that I am drowning. I am a sinking ship. You never should have seen me here. I am in this phase the least lovable I've ever been and I know you're leaving because you can't stand to see me this way, with him. I don't blame you, but I'm not coming with you either. I won't' be saved. As with most things, I have to figure out a way to do that for myself. 

We're driving to the movies. I am seventeen. You are driving. You're always driving. We're playing the padiddle game and it's the best because you get so animated and you're never animated, as far as I can tell. It's hilarious to me. It's a very competitive game, we get worked up on purpose because there is too much energy bouncing around the car. It's spewing out of us so rapidly and whirling around us, trapped in the vehicle, no place to go. It's dark out and we're going to the movies and we're just friends but you're becoming my best friend and the summer is almost over which means I'm leaving for school soon, but we're not talking about that. We don't talk about that. You're smiling over at me and arguing with me and for some reason I break the force field between us. I reach across our seats and I put my hand over your mouth to stop you from talking, to quiet you so I can argue louder. Really, it's just because I have to touch you. I'm being drawn to you. I had to touch your lips with some part of my body or I was going to explode, spontaneous combustion. That's the only time we touched that entire summer, I think. The tickle fights and bruises came the next year. That's the first time I touched you. It felt like getting struck by lightning, in a good way.

These are nothing. These are tiny, miniscule. These are grains of sand. There are literally millions of them. They build up, I find them everywhere. Like dust, it's settled over everything. Like a universe stuck on one of the lenses of my glasses. You're gone and I feel unmoored, unsteady. Sometimes I feel nothing and it's a relief and it's wretched at the same time. I keep myself so occupied on a moment-to-moment basis that usually I feel okay or better than okay. But sometimes I'll be alone and I'll catch a flicker of a memory and I'll find myself frozen twenty minutes later, lost in the night we made fire biscuits or the way we fell asleep fully clothed two New Year's Eves ago when we shared that hotel room with my sister and her husband, or how you locked yourself in a broom closet at our fancy hotel in St. Louis. You taught me how to shoot a gun, you've attended more of my brothers' sporting events than I probably have, I've been to two of your grandmothers' funerals, and you've survived so many dinners with my family that you're not even considered a guest. My mother bosses you around with the rest of us. It's just a lot, you know. It's just the weight of pushing away someone who holds all of your context. I'll have to physically shake myself, like a dog coming out of water. I'm okay. I'm happy. I'm good. It's just so strange. 

right now.

I'm thinking of a number between one and a million. I'm thinking of a day between now and the end of summer. Never. Never. Never. It's never happening, it can't possibly end. 

I'm almost certain this is the most languid period I've ever had in my life. Every day I dive into a new adventure and somehow I find a way to slip through the grasp of monotony. I'm even making money. I've got this job and my boss is so wonderful and flexible that it almost doesn't feel like a real job that an almost-27-year-old should have. I come and go and he assigns me 'projects' that I complete with ease and then I sit and laugh and joke with the other women in the office. I ride my bike to work. I ride my bike to friend's houses. I zip around town with relative ease, my hair blowing behind me in the wind. I cut myself a pair of jorts out of men's wranglers and I wear them everywhere and don't even worry how they make my legs look. It feels free to not constantly worry about cellulite and big thighs and I have no idea how it happened, but I'm so glad it did. My body gets me where I need to go, that's beautiful enough. 

I play tennis or I go on hikes or I sit and read books on my porch for entire afternoons. I went two weeks without drinking earlier this month. I woke up every morning feeling rested and happy. My friends and I did activities like making elephant ears and playing heated games of cards and sipped on ginger ale, laughing high and clear. Or I'll get loaded on moscow mules on a random bar porch and skip my way home as the sun sets. It doesn't matter, it seems anything that happens is the right thing. 

I whisper to my car and give the dashboard a good luck rub whenever I drive to a new adventure, but mostly I trust her to prevail. I trust trust trust right now. I bring home twenty books from the library and pluck one from the middle without looking. That is how I choose what comes next. In every situation. I pluck from the middle and commit to the idea until it has reached completion. It is working. It is so right in this phase. 

I am a plant sitter. I am a book lender. I am a woman on a tightrope, but it is summer, so I'm keeping myself light and believing in my own ability to balance, eyes closed. I'm listening to Paul Simon and bopping around my little apartment. I've got a laundry basket full of dirty clothes in my bathtub, but my tan has never been better and my smile never so bright. I'm doing what my whims say. I'm listening to myself. Who knew that felt so right? There's an ease in pressure right now. It's fantastic. 

I am canoeing in mountain lakes and steering the vessel from the back seat because even when I try to be light, there are still some things I need to control. I joined this group of folks who read an article from a scholarly journal each week and then meets to discuss it. Nerds prevail. We find and flock to each other everywhere, it seems. It's an almost perpetual blur of campfires and sunsets, this summer. For once I'm not already looking past it, I'm allowing myself to be swallowed by it. Holy moly, glory glory. 

My hair is bleaching out in the sun and my smile is content and real. There are sad things too, because that's life, but it is my favorite season in my favorite place and right now I have zero complaints. 

upswing.

Whew. Yesterday's post was a tad bit....dismal. 

Let's bring things up a bit, eh? Things are going to fall into place and I'm going to stop living so second-to-second and try to see bigger picture things. Big picture things are that it's my favorite season and I live in a place I love and I have great friends and my phone is back on. WOOOO. 

On another MUCH more positive note, I went backpacking last weekend! It was awesome! I had a great time! Look at all these exclamation points I'm using!!! Seriously though, it was awesome and the mountains, rivers, woods, and general wilderness setting was balm to the soul. 

Another trip is on the docket for this weekend, which is equally thrilling, because as much as I love Missoula, sometimes it's best to get back to basics.... aka let some of the faces I see daily in this town miss me just a little bit. 

Last weekend, we hiked into Blodgett Canyon, touted by many a guidebook/website as "The most picturesque canyon in all of the Bitteroot Mountains." I'd have to say they have my full agreement. However, I have not actually seen all of the canyons, so maybe don't take my word alone for it.

Let me take you on a brief tour of my memorial day weekend:

here's some of our shit being loaded into the car! look how prepared for the great outdoors we are! also, everyone in montana drives a subaru. not kidding, it's like an army of subarus on the road everywhere you look. luckily, we were in a subaru, so we fit in great. 

this is my adorable friend aubrey getting psyched to backpack all our shit into the woods. she bought that TMNT flatbill cap especially for the trip and i don't think i've ever loved her more. 

in case anyone was wondering, THIS IS BEAR COUNTRY. 

this is my friend alex leading us straight into a rain storm. it may look sunny, but it's about to not be. we ended up hiking multiple miles into the rain, only to turn around and double back to flat place with a bit of shelter. then it stopped raining and the sun came out again, which i took to be the good omen it most likely was. 

oh, here's where we made camp. not a bad view if i do say so myself.

this is alex wowing us with his ability to play an instrument called the "jaw harp." it sounds like the popping a boner sound effect in cheesy movies.  this inspired us to form a band called the "blodgett canyon boys" even though alex was the only boy. i played the forks and aubrey played her water bottle. we'll probably play coachella next year. look out.

this is aubrey and i celebrating our superior skills at living. or taking in the glorious bounty around us. or maybe just acting like this was a candid picture even though it was pretty staged. of course i packed in flip flops. 

aubrey packed in a 2 liter of squirt. this is because we created a new drink for this summer. it is made out of gin and squirt. fresca would probably be equally as delicious, but squirt is probably the most awesome name for a soda pop ever, so it's the summer of squirt. SOS! as the gin level went down, many hilarious squirt jokes were told. and that is why squirt beats fresca. also, this was alex's first EVER time drinking squirt, which is unbelievable to me, but we made him burn the bottle after he killed it. sorry, environment. 

after we finished off all the squirt 'n gin and a six pack of beer and some wine, we decided at 3 am that we needed to hang our food so we wouldn't get eaten by bears. now personally, i've never done this before so it was a learning experience. in all, the venture took us about 45 minutes to complete, which is apparently not ideal. i believe that our band's music probably frightened off all the creatures, but being in the woods of montana means not taking chances with bears. 

the next day we did some more hikin'. it wasn't raining so it was really enjoyable. also a shitload more people showed up so we felt extra tough for having made it though the inclement weather of the day before.  please note now that aubrey has zipped off the bottom of her pants. yes friends, she rocked the shants. it was awesome.

here's a waterfall we found. pretty little guy.

looks like the pant legs are back.

and here is a pretty good view of the canyon as we walked. anyway, loading pictures takes forever, so i think i'm done. but it was a good trip.  i loved it. i can't wait to camp all summer long. but next time i'm not going to pack in six potatoes because that shit is excessive and also kind of heavy. 

yikes.

I hate everything right now. 

I want to throw myself into walls right now. 

I want to lie under the covers and kick and scream and never get out of bed again right now. Everything is pissing me off and it's only getting worse with one second passing into the next second passing into the second closer to the time I'm due back in this fucking summer school class that is five and a half hours long every day of the week. 

What ever happened to summer? What ever happened to people being who you thought they were and things not having 38479485 more uses than their original, intended use. Thanks a heap for that, pinterest. 

What ever happened to things working out the way you planned or at least being within the same realm of possibility? 

Why aren't there more cowboys in Montana? Isn't that what people think? I don't know. Maybe in the eastern part of the state. I'm in the western part. It's all mountains and a weird militantly outdoorsy/hipster/bluegrass fusion. I'm sure there's more in the mix but I'm not feeling particularly able to suss it out and describe it cleverly.

What ever happened to the days without cell phones? We're all so goddamn connected it's sick to me it's like we've all got umbilical cords still attached to the womb of holy ATT or Verizon or whatever was cheaper at the time of contractual agreement. I've been without a cell phone for a week and it's amazing how socially crippled one can become when they don't have something everyone else has and they have no other real winning qualities. I shouldn't be such a baby. I've got email, right? This isn't by choice, I should add. My provider gets fed up when I don't pay my bill on time. It's a better trade off this way, I can be a real bitch when I can't afford to feed myself. As much as I'd love to say I'm going off the grid or something pretentiously different like that, I'm just irresponsible with money. Surprise, surprise. 

 My friend Brie came to my house and yelled outside my window recently to see if I was home and it was the most adorable thing that's ever happened to me. She asked me to go somewhere, and though I really didn't want to, I went anyway because I was so overwhelmed by gratitude that she was willing to bridge the gap between us in whatever way it took. She's a good person. And resourceful. 

I've taken to just showing up places and hoping for the best. It's usually not so bad. 

I've taken to never blow-drying my hair and scowling at people. I really like it. I've taken to eating poorly and never apologizing to anyone but myself. Sorry self. 

I've always made bad choices, but I gotta say, I really think I'm getting good at it. 

I'm in this phase where I feel I have very little to say to people. Especially strangers. It's to the point where when I meet someone I can't hold my end of the conversational rope and usually I'll just walk away to save us both the trouble. I feel bad, like I should say "I wasn't always this way." But I don't want anyone to get their hopes up. Plus, what do you say to that?

God, you know how wrong a word looks when you spell it wrong? That's just wild to me. Just a minute ago I typed "conversatoinal" and my eye started twitching just looking at it. Glaring mistakes. I make a lot of those, not just when typing. At least that's how it feels afterward. 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm dying. You know, if I have some silent but spreading illness that's just going to wipe me out as soon as I discover it. Does anyone else wonder that? Probably, I'm thinking. I just want to be taken by surprise if it's going to take me. I hate fighting losing battles. I just hate losing, I guess. 

I really hope this rant is a product of pms. 

i am a junk food person.

Lately I've been snagged on this idea about myself, that I'm a junk food type of person. There are people who are good for you, good for themselves. They do well, do right, offer the kind of emotional nutrition that can sustain you in the long term. I fear and suspect that I am not this kind of person, or at least that I am not this kind of person anymore. 

You see, I am a fix. I am a short term sugar high. When you meet me at the right moment, I will spin you away into a whirlwind that's addicting and undeniable. I know the draw to me, can feel myself pulling people in. And it's grand and sometimes spectacular and there is a chemistry to me that will make you want to see me again. Make you need to be around me again, consume what I have to offer. 

But that is where it stops. Because I'm not the healthy sort of relationship that can give you the long term effects of a well balanced meal and plenty of sleep. I am the sugar-drenched machiato that tastes great for the five seconds you place your lips to the straw. I am the greasy fast-food bag that you ravage like a rabid creature and then, embarrassed, hide the pitiful wrappers under your sink so your friends won't know you gave in to the temptation. 

I am fun, a good-time girl. And everyone needs one of those to turn to when the stress grows too much and you've got to blow off steam for the night. I am only a faithful servant when what you're ordering is irresponsibility, laughter, poor choices, and a rough tomorrow morning. 

I induce a crash. People lose interest in me because I have so little to offer in the long term. I am that regrettable ice cream cone, that last shot at the end of the night that you didn't need. I'll leave you teetering somewhere between the grand moment I bring and the moment directly afterward, when reality sets back in. 

I'm charming, enticing, by nature. I can convince you that what I am suggesting is so logical it may as well be the only choice, but then four hours later you're hugging a porcelain bowl in some strangers dingy apartment and I'll be spinning my promises to someone new. I'll never desert you on purpose, it's just that my feeble effects wear off so fast that it won't be long until you are able to see me for what I really am. 

I am that weak moment you had. I am that lovely, inviting thing that never delivers on its promises and just plain isn't good for you.

Junk food. 

And we live in a culture of junk. Of consumption and denying the negative effects. There is a place for me, but I fret over the fact that it's surface level and not long lasting. Not the kind of thing adults with any impulse control whatsoever reach for in weak moments. 

I am a cigarette, a beer, a fast food window, a bag of chips. I'll satisfy you on a moment to moment basis, but either you realize what I really am, worthless, and move on, or you start to crave me in a way that makes it impossible for me to deliver. 

It's not your fault. I can only be what I am. 

whirlwind.

I thought I'd get back to myself a bit while I was back east or something. That I'd find myself or get back to who I think I am or just remember why I left in the first place. Something, you know? Like, give me some fucking answers, Universe. I feel I've gotten so far from myself lately that I am struggling to get through anything except the bare minimum of going to class and writing papers when necessary. Motivation feels minimal and not in the end-of-the-semester way I remember from undergrad.

All I really got out of my trip personally was to feel like Indianapolis was suddenly huge. Sprawling, climbing into the sky, whizzing past. Parts of that were okay, I like to drive fast on the grids of street that stretch in all directions. But you know, I've never felt intimidated by the size, the number of people, the way the suburbs span on forever and ever past the belt that sucks in the cities' waist.  Until now. There's so much of it, you know? How quickly we forget. How badly I wanted to when I left. And it's not like it's even close to the biggest city I've lived in, it's not. It's just what I went back to is all. 

And then there were other moments where the places that used to offer me comfort only served to make me want to chain smoke and drink heavily. Whenever, whatever. Not all of them, but enough that it wasn't a balm for my soul.

To be around the people who hold your context, who know you that well, with that longevity, and still love you forcefully and protectively when you need it, it's good. I think maybe it will always feel good. It's good in a way that feels frenzied and forced, though. Like you have to make some epic times or have some life-changingly meaningful conversation. Like you have to find a way to express to them how much they mean to you. But, you can't. Not really. The secret to it is in the way that you live. And it's not even really a secret, it's just a sucky truth that I usually deny or ignore. You can't really search for something that hard if you expect to remember where you put it in the first place. It just seems to make me doubt everything.

It is in the way that you live, though.  It's in picking up the phone, even if you're only going to say "I have to call you back later." It's in driving five hours for a hug, because you finally can. Because it's ONLY five hours. It's in doing the right thing, I guess, even though you don't want to. Listening when you have a million of your own things to say. Your hurt parts that need bandaged. 

Anyway. My niece turned a year old and she got baptized and I am her god mother and I can't wait to tell her about love and trusting herself and how faith can (and maybe should) look different for everyone because we are all experiencing life in our own beautiful and terrible way. About how church can look a million different ways. About how, for me, church feels like listening to someone you like talk about something or someone they really, really love. Even though I don't go to the actual building with the steeple anymore, I have faith. I think that's right for me. I'm new to the whole godmother thing, hopefully I do an okay job. 

My sister is having a tough time and my grandparents are taking care of each other and my parents are still a safe place to bounce ideas off of. My friends are still hilarious and supportive and reaching and striving and making things happen. And I think they're happy, too. Which makes my heart a little less heavy. 

I got back to Montana and I was exhausted. I feel like I really never stopped moving the entire time I was out east. And that's okay. But 12 days is a long time to be in motion. To worry about what other people want more than you. To feel like if you spend time with one person, you're disappointing all the others. I needed to come home to the mountains to think straight. To be alone. To get back to myself, I guess. Maybe I shouldn't have looked so far. At least I got to get back to some of the people I love for a little bit, who for now are fully in the east. Who are not far from themselves. Who are home. 

And now I realize my home is not theirs anymore. But they still are mine in some ways. For me, that feels fine.  

hodgepodge.

this is my new light switch cover. i put it on myself because i am a regular handywoman.  also, it was a gift from my friend brie who is amazing and knows me well. 

I don't understand running skirts. I've been thinking about them a lot this week for whatever reason, and they actually really irk me.  I chafe when I sweat, man, and when I run, I sweat. I need leg sleeves. Aka pant legs. And don't even get my started with skorts. Why do you want to LOOK like you're running in a skirt? You're not being tricky. You look ridiculous. 

I've been watching a lot of The West Wing. I love that shows to bits. I love it TO DEATH. Enough that I didn't leave my house last night (Saturday) because I was watching it. I'm a Saturday night kind of person, but my love for this show kept me hunkered in. That's some serious love. It makes me wonder what my life would have been like if I'd gone to public policy school like I planned. But you know, I didn't. So now I'm going to talk about feelings forever for the rest of my life and I think that's pretty okay too. Also, real life isn't like the West Wing, real life is way less witty and has a lot more sleep.

I tried out the new doughnut place in town this morning. They had some really damn good doughnuts. I had a glazed and a maple bar. I don't eat enough doughnuts. Maybe none of us do and that's why people are such assholes sometimes. I never want to act like an asshole to someone when I'm in the act of eating a doughnut. Unless they're trying to take my doughnut, and then I'm like, "Back off, buddy." But instead of 'buddy' I am thinking in my head 'fuckface.'

I got into a screaming match with my best friend's ex-boyfriend on the street on Friday night. I probably needed a doughnut to calm me down. But seriously, that dude sucks and the world needs to know it. So now the crowd that witnessed our altercation knows exactly what I think about him. Which is that he is an untalented wannabe cowboy man-child. And also a sociopath. And also a piece of shit. They also know that he finds me naive and petty. Touche, sir. It just got to the point that I couldn't hold it in anymore, you know? I just had to say something. And one thing led to another and next thing you know, you're nose to nose telling a grown man that he's a shitty writer and that he only cares about himself and it's pathetic. What can I say? I speak the truth.

I got a new job and it pays more than minimum wage. Like, double what I've been making almost. Thank goodness, I'll be able to buy bread and wine in bottles instead of boxes again. I'm really getting my shit together, obviously.  Have I mentioned how much of The West Wing I've been watching? Adulthood, guys. It has its perks.

Oh, by the way, I also went back east to visit family and friends for twelve days. It was a long trip that flew by in mere moments. I'll write about it soon. I didn't get to spend enough time with anyone. That's kind of what life is like for me all the time, though. I'm back in the mountains, now and it snowed last night. There is still snow up in the mountains, but it's melting and dripping off of roofs and cars hoods and lawns as I type these words. Nothing comes out of me eloquently right now and I'm sorry for that, but mostly for myself. My record player is on the fritz, the speakers won't play. I haven't unpacked my suitcase yet, though coming home to a spotlessly clean apartment with new sheets and fresh towels was the best thing I have done for myself all year. Easily. 

I'm going to watch The West Wing and take a bath now. Happy Sunday. 

my niece and i during my visit home. i can't believe she's already lived through an entire year on earth. wild.