Stocked.

Yesterday,

We played at Cavestock our Senior year.

Courtesy of Chloe Ann Mehr. We've it documented.

Breathing Some Eyre

Today, we tried out for good ole Cavestock

To answer your question, I have no idea. Really I don't.

BUT it was fun:) I always always always love playing with Shelb and Adam.

Secret Talent.

So, on Saturday, I went with my beautiful mother to the movies.

We saw Jane Eyre. Casted perfectly. Captured brilliantly. Directed beautifully.

It is my favorite book. I'm so pleased with its creativity without betraying the accuracy.

Jane Eyre is one of the most beautiful characters ever written. Her firm grasp on reality, in life, and in herself is peculiarly paralleled with her quiet nature.

She is the most interesting persona to me.

A walking contradiction. You would not expect her to be the resilient woman she is....

And yet....

She is who she is.

No apologies.

No regrets.

She deals with pain in the most logical way, not letting anyone get in the way of who she knows she is meant to be.

She doesn't let her emotions control her without forgetting to attend to them.

Her perfections lies in her accepting of her imperfections, her contradictions, and her peculiarities as strengths, as defining qualities.

anyway.

I bring it up, because I forget every time why I love the book. Until I read it again, or, in this case, I'm reminded of it by a beautiful adaptation for film.

I'm not a feminist or anything...(?) but for the time period, and even for our day, she proves to women and to men, that independence is crucial to the growth and success of any individual.

She is the heroine of the book, not because she saved anyone, but because saved herself. She gave up all of her wants, maybe even her needs, to preserve the most sacred thing to her- that being her independence.

She won because she decided she would.

For every crossroads, for every storm (allegorical as well as literal), for every beating, whipping, and shunning, she never lost sight of who she was/is/will be.

Was, Is, and Will Be are all the same anyway. A form of Being, right?

That's why I love her. She just. Is.

She is not afraid to just Be.

Don't even get me started about Mr. Rochester.

He loves freely. He appreciates the free spirit. He understands the need for the spirit to be connected before love becomes a reality.

Also. He has his opinions, and sticks to them. Again, without apologies or regrets like Jane. He doesn't shove them down people's throats, nor does he shut away anyone else's.

He is completely confident and can pierce your soul with his eyes. He's just a man's man. Rugged. Awesome. Smart. He and Jane are intellectual equals.

Both he and Jane are walking contradictions. Or it's just how the world labels them anyway.

Maybe, we as humans are supposed to be ostensibly contradictory, but the opposites work together to reinforce our strengths. To uphold the seeming incompatible truths of our characters.

As Much As I Hate To Admit, Birthdays Are Freakin' Great.

April 27, 1993.

A very intriguing girl was born.

Her eyes wide open, her hair in mats.

A star shined brightly for one who could ..... skat.?

That was a poem I just wrote about myself.

Totally awkward, yet surprisingly necessary.

My morning started off great-

My eyes drifted open on their own, and when my mind realized it was conscious, I did a little dance, albeit still under the covers.

Sarah gave me the best gift ever- a Fedora and a freakin sweet necklace.

She threw it to me in a plastic bag.

I've never been more happy.

On time (somehow) to school, I was wished and wished and wished Happy Birthday! by many a folk.

Mikelle gave me the best gift ever- a Barbie bag enclosing a GORGEOUS scarf, accompanied by the most well-written, sincere card that only Mikelle and a few others can whip out of their pens. Also, her sister hand made the card. It was adorable.

Later, in Journalism, Chloe gave me the best gift ever- A tin full of yellow-frosted cupcakes for the class to share. :) they were ridiculously delicious, as only Chloe can make the best cupcakes ever.

Except for Steve,

Who,

Fifteen minutes later,

had come in bearing an equally scrumptious cupcake:) (only not to share, though I did later, with Martin.)

They sang Happy Birthday to me.:) :) :) suuuper awkward.

Mrs. Dougher gave me some candy.

At lunch.

Oy.

At lunch, Cami and Whitney summoned me.... where I was sort of dragged into the dreaded atmosphere of ... dread.(?)

Presented to me was a cake, blinding-white, with blue frosting on the edges and a GIANT STAR OF DAVID made of yellow, in the very center.

Handed to me were pink, white, and black balloons, the biggest one saying, and I quote, "fabulous, flirty, and thirty!"

18 seconds later, I see Parker and his huge mouth. The entire school lunch-room sang, maybe at the top of their lungs, yet again, the awkward birthday song.

I really don't think my face could have gotten redder.

Really.

Or hot.

(and ornery.)<-----(haha SJS and LAC)

Then, we ate cake. and Shelbie gave me the best gift ever- NandNorah's Infinite Playlist. I watched it later in the night.

What a splendidly awkward but totally necessary day.

LIFE!!!!!!

Best weekend ever. Really. Want to know why? Well, that's too bad, because I'm not spilling any Deets!!!
Just know, that sometimes, after years and years of waiting and groaning and running and mumbling and just wanting to take a blessed walk in the park away from all that is and was.... Well. You get what you need.

Saturday. April 23. You must admit, it was a beautiful, blessed Saturday.

Today, however, I taught my first lesson in Primary! (I now teach the eleven-year-olds namely Meghan, Jasmine, Courtney, Caitlyn, Emily, and beautiful Adi Jensen)
They are hilarious. / they are not funny, but they somehow thing everything that comes out of my mouth is intended as a joke. .. Maybe it's the hair? I dunno.
But they really are a joy.
We talked about Easter today.

We talked about Resurrection.

We talked about the tradition of an egg and where the devil it comes from . (If you wanted to know, it's French and the Egg is a symbol of the Stone that had to be overturned by the Angel Elias)

But most importantly we spoke of hope.
The Original Hope.

Hope is a funny thing. (As my girls would probably burst out laughing at this point...)
It drives us to attempt the impossible. It drives us to surrender any doubts, fears, insecurities and to bound into the seemingly dark, desolate, empty space. Hoping that someone is there to catch us, feel us, understand us, love us, vouch for us.

In a way the only hope that is actually real, that actually works, is the hope that is somewhat knowledge.
It's an action.
We put that hope to action, plug it into the equation, set that hope on fire and watch it take of running, watch the solution appear from the sea of division signs and square roots, watch it conflagrate.

And even if that hope burns and dies, there is still the satisfaction of actually trying.
Failing is never the end, It's just the time where you learn you cannot fly, but maybe you can ride a scooter, instead. Then maybe one day, you'll try and fly again, and you never know....
Maybe hope is just an experiment you try over and over until it becomes reality.
Keep hoping, keep trying, until that hope is who you are: a hoper--> a doer--> a seeker--> a finder.

Anyway. I love those girls. They're beautiful. They're at the stage where they don't know what it's like to doubt. Not anything. Not their looks, or their grades, or their peers, or the world, or themselves. They have so much hope for things. Not anything like the Jr. High and High School kids who worry too much, who "know" the world is harmful and cruel, and who "know" that they are not good enough.

And guess who is the happiest out of all the world?

What's needed most is sometimes the reassurance that your hope is not in vain.
Who is the person to assure you that it's not?
It's yourself. (+2 others)



To need=to make a commitment.



Happy Easter, Everyone.

NUEVOyork?

HELLO. I SUCK AT POSTING.

BUt.

There is one good thing about my life: My Life in New York.

and It's reminiscent of Mal and Mik. Don't worry, you two, I've not forgotten you.

It is hilarious to watch the new two, a.k.a. Laura and Shelbie gawk, squak, and oogle over the yellow lights, smelly hobos, and every single cab maybe or maybe not being the cash cab.

Gah.

I love sharing this part of my life with others. It's surreal. Like two twins separated at birth, (just now meeting int their late thirties who discovered that the other had a similar life including a cat, an ex-husband, and an obsession with David Bowie), my two loves/lives are once again meeting. :)

Sitting here. Watching Those Two stare out the window of my father's apartment, enthralled. Typing semi-furiously on this ancient laptop of Laura's. I've not been so happy in a long time.

Shelb pointed out that this is something we three have needed. To escape into a world of bigger and better, into a breath of fresh air, is something we have subconsciously been craving. I think we all need a little oxygen. I'm beyond grateful to be getting that good ole O2 with Laur and Shelb in the good ole NYC.

P.S. My father is and will always be the same- the best tour guide in the country with a mouth and a nose.

Fuel for Fire

You know those girls who write names over and over and over again? and then one more time for good measure. and after about 4 minutes and 39 seconds, the page is covered in that name, and the curly letters with hearts all around it make the page look like somebody puked a cupid on it.

Well..

It's stupid. That's all I have to say about it.

Another thing..... I've been trying to listen to this band that basically everybody I talk to SWEARS BY.

And. I must admit.

I hate it. It's the worst. ever. I have a weird reaction/retaliation to its "musicality"/ it sounds like a freakin steamroller attempting the height of a pitch much like unto a tween girl happening upon her long-lost b.f.f. from, like, furevur ago.

>..? "3 in the mornin, better get some sleepin soon" - from said "band." (if you could call it that)

gahhhh

Almost done with DANG online classes!!! Hopefully Wheetneey will help me with health.

oh my gosh. this band sucks. I'm trying. I'm trying.

okay. next topic:

Trains.

They are symbolic.

As usual.

But sometimes, I like when people sing about it.

It's like music to my ears (no literal pun intended) after listening to rubbish.

P.S. I will never tell you the sucky band. On account of, I feel bad gossiping about them... (in case they hear me...)

GOOD NOTE: The Kooks are moving up on my list of FAV'S. (fav's? really, Ari?)

go on... listen to Naive. It's beautiful.

P.S.S. This is what is known as a puke post. Learn to lovem.

Financial Blit.

This is the main point I learned in Financial Lit today:

and I quote, "If you're alive, you are at risk at something." (visit this link if you don't believe me)

I basically laughed out loud when I read it.

Then... I thought about it.

And, even though it's the most ridiculous claim ever stated, the truth of it is hard to ignore.

Riskkk. The game of Life.

P.S.

Best news ever:

I'M GOING TO RAY LAMONTAGNE.

AND I WILL FALL IN LOVE

AND I DON'T CARE IF IT'S REAL OR NOT.

OR THAT HE'S KIND OF 37 YEARS OLD....

age does not affect the matters of the heart.

P.S.S I"m changing my name to Hannah, Jolene, Sarah, Meg, or (if worse comes to worst) You.

Then he can sing to me. And my name will be in there somewhere. Even if it is "I could hold You in my aaaarms," in which case I still win.

Ray is a real man. Beard. Voice. Guitar. EYES. MANE.

He's a lion to me. And I've never actually told anyone this before, but lions are sort of my thing. Yay for posted secrets. ... (...p.s.s.s(s?.) One day I will tell you all about my deal with lions..)

I'm done for.