I can't stop listening

to the song "Woke Up New" by the Mountain Goats.



It pains me that it sounds like I wrote it. I miss you guys. Emilea, can't wait to see you in a week.

A little something for Emilea

Hopefully this is readable...I got this out of a fortune cookie today and immediately laughed because I was thinking of you, being inappropriate for the only time during those two weeks and adding "in bed" to the end.

And I also smiled because this fortune totally fits you, Emilea. So what if you were being "selfish?" Don't we all want to believe that about ourselves? I'm not sure if I could really enjoy governor's school without a one of you, if I were accepted. But I would certainly take what I could get. I'd give away a lot to spend two years with you, darling. I would miss exercising and surfing the web with you, and being uplifted by your constant, fierce desire to be a better person.

So what if you're not "super friend?" You're you. A lovely and eloquent sunshine-bringer. We wouldn't have it any other way.

PS: Can you tell what the fortune is on top of?
PPS: Heather, I would love to hear about your reasons for not sending in the application. I'm sure you thought it out, and I'd really like to learn more, if that's okay.

So This is the New Year...

It's fitting that today there's a clear blue so-clean-I-feel-new sky outside. It was the same last year. Jan 1, 2008 was the most physically beautiful day of the year in Aiken. Maybe today will be the same.

I just watched the ball drop on youtube. It's one of my favorite parts of the holiday season: watching the biggest party in the country. I love how they always play "Imagine" by John Lennon, in hopes of a good year. And how you can hear Times Square singing along and then shouting the countdown. And how, post-ball drop, Frank Sinatra started to play, and Bill and Hillary Clinton started dancing together. And how he kept his hands on her shoulders when they were done, until the song was over.

I brought in the new year in the corner booth at Waffle House. I used my buy one-get one waffle coupon, good until December 31, 2008. The waitresses all wore party hats. I didn't realize it was midnight until this guy sitting at the counter said, "Hey guys, I have midnight on my phone!" And we all shouted Happy New Year, and it's the first time I've ever had someone to kiss, per tradition. And we played "What A Wonderful World" on the Jukebox and sang it together as we finished our waffles. And later, in the back seat of his car, we talked about 2009. And then we didn't talk. And then he took me home and I read the O. Henry Awards 2008 and Winter Stars.

My New Year's Resolution? I've decided to set something realistic. To get into Governor's school, and, if I don't get in, to accept the fact. To go on with my life, with NJROTC, with writing.

An afterthought: If we last to August, I want to make the best decision regarding this relationship of mine. I have the feeling we'll come out of this hurt, not because of anything we've done, but because of circumstance. Because we fight but we always work it out (we're both too damn stubborn to give up). Because neither of us are really built for long distances. But to be able to accept the hurt, and be happy that I had something good, even if for a short time.

I've lost some things, too. Extreme amounts of stress (I guess his senioritis rubbed off on me), social anxiety (being Public Affairs Officer of an NJROTC unit can do that to you), religion (my reason for following it? Fear. I believe in a higher power, but maybe not the same I've been instructed to follow, and ostracized for not following. I just hope that, if the God of the Bible is who it says he is, he can give me a desire for him. So I can practice real faith, the kind that comes from joy in finding something instead of fear of losing something else.) And of course, fear of showing my poetry to anyone else. Obviously, this fear has been at least partly conquered.

I could say this wonderful boy is the best thing I got out of 2008, but that's wrong. Because it's you. And Governor's School. And all the writing and reading I'm doing. And a heart-contracting love for poetry I never would have found without one Mamie Morgan.

I am so content right now. I feel like a cat curled up on a windowsill. Naturally, this will change when I get ready to mail in my application and start second-guessing myself. For now, I'll just enjoy it.

Happy 2009, everyone. I wish we could have celebrated together.

Happy Birthday, Darling.

Because, honestly, what else could I have called it?

Emilea, this comes to you a day late. As you probably heard over the phone, I was hundreds of miles away from my computer. (But it didn't matter, because I was inches away from two of my favorite people.) I know I've been nearly dead to the blogging world, and I haven't posted in a while. But I thought your sixteenth birthday definitely merited an ascent, on my part, out of my little hermit hole.

I just want to say thanks for sticking it out sixteen years and for being my friend. Thanks for being sweet and adorable and empathetic and making us all want to be a little nicer to the people around us, too. Thanks for being so affected by beautiful things. The world would be so much better if everyone was touched by simple beauty the way you are.

Thanks for being a lovely, gentle writer and for sharing with us, even though sometimes it's hard to share. I hope you have sixteen more years of good writing. And then sixteen after that. And so on. I hope you do great things with this gift of yours.

I miss you dearly! I miss the way you read poetry and the way you take that elliptical machine for all its worth. I hope we can exercise together again soon.

We love you very much. Happy Birthday, Darling.

I'm Just a Wookie in a China Shop.

My little brother and I have this secret addiction to GSN. Actually, we have a not-so-secret addiction to winning. No, dominating. Completely smashing the other teams into smithereens (wonder where that word has its roots) and then kicking the wreckage around on the floor in the midst of our maniacal laughter.

Okay, so we're not that competitive. But we do love beating the people on TV, though no one will ever know but us. Who Wants to Be A Millionaire is most definitely a favorite. Today we tried to make it into the hotseat. And I did. You were supposed to name the movies from oldest to newest (A. Babe: Pig in the City, B. Willard, C. Gremlins, D. Bringing up Baby). And I just fired off "DBCA!!!" The winner's time was 6.42 seconds. We estimated that mine was about two seconds faster. (Because anything with Katharine Hepburn in it is obviously old as sin, Babe came out in my lifetime, Gremlins is from the 80's and Willard was just a wild guess.)

We also decided, after watching the 200 dollar question: "Clumsy people are often described as what 'in a china shop?'" Option D was Wookie. Daniel and I decided that we are most definitely wookies in a china shop. For one thing, Chewbacca's destruction is worse than a bull because he is more intelligent and therefore makes a more conscious choice to destroy things. For another, we freaking love wookies. We were raised by an anything-associated-with-outer-space nerd extraordinaire. We should be a species all to ourselves, unfit to interact on a daily level with other human beings.

I just felt like injecting some random into your lives because school just hurts my brain a whole lot and thinking about wookies make that tightly wound coil loosen up just slightly.

Also, we ran an orienteering course in a state park today and I got the fastest time. (It was a crappy time to begin with, but not terrible considering this is my second course ever, and the first one in a year.) It was incredibly fun. I have never had the ability to be comfortable without knowing exactly where I am, and am therefore a really rad map-reader. I also, as I mentioned before, get a really huge adrenaline rush from winning. ^_^

I miss you guys. A lot. It's like...haha, it's like this wookie is inside my chest, and every time I wish I could be with you he makes an anguished noise and thumps his fists against my sternum.

God, bone names are so funny. I find that humerus. (HAHA! I MADE A PUN!)

I obviously need to stop writing now, as all the parts of my brain that make semi-intelligent things to say started turning into collective goo after about the first paragraph or so.

All my love is stretched both your ways.
-Anna

Many questions.

Is it possible to love someone so much you can delude yourself into thinking you have feelings for them?
I think it is. I think it's entirely possible. When you always light up as someone comes into a room, it's hard to tell if anything's changed.

And the thing is that I could try. And the worst part is that I think I want to.

When does friendly banter turn to flirting? And when do you press your face into his chest for a hug and realize you don't quite want to leave?

Why, when I push my toe to the line, does it start to smudge? And does he see it too?

Maybe I am deluding myself. It's happened before.