Fits like a Croc charm

(Pre-Script: This post will ergonomically adhere to your brain like sand on the seashore to a barefoot foot when paired with the song,"Mysterious Ways," #24 on the playlist, so go down to that song, click it on, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Why do shoes that are designed to be comfortable have to look so ugly?

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.
Oh, what's this?? It appears that words have slipped my mind like sand through my fingers on the beach, but I am not comforted by such a slippage. I love the feeling of the sand slipping out between my fingers, walking barefoot in the sand, feeling it sink between my toes like form fitting ergonomically corrective shoes. Something like what Crocs are intended to be, but not so dorky looking on a grown up. And you can't affix a charm to the sand as you can to a Croc. It would just get lost and eventually buried, where a medal detector wielding beach comber will wave his detector over the very spot, hear his detector start to beep beep beep, which will encourage him to dig dig dig, and find the charm. Maybe he will have a young child at home who will appreciate the charm for his or her own pair of Crocs, or maybe the metal detecting general will decide to put the Croc charm in his own pair of Crocs, which he wears only around the house for the sake of their incredible comfort since the floor of his own house is not made of sand. He will place the charm in his very ugly comfortable shoes, now both tacky AND ugly, but he will wear it as a sort of inside joke between himself and his metal detector, thereby unleashing his inner 9 year old girl. Do not be alarmed; I am not insulting the dear man; every person has an inner 9 year old girl. One need only spend an afternoon with a 9 year old girl to realize that we all contain such a person inside of ourselves at all times, and she is always waiting for any excuse to be unleashed. Trust me.
Blink, Wink.
So the real question is WHO unleashed the inner 9 year old girl of the designated Croc shoe designers, who unleashed the inner 9 year old girl of the people approving of the shoe design before it went out to the stores? Everyone involved in the Croc shoe design must have been blinded by their inner 9 year old girls, and this explains the many hideous colors they come in.

-XOXO,

Caught up

(Pre-Script: To catch the most out of this post, please read it as the song, " Breathe," #55 on the palylist, plays in the background. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

My heart leapt up and caught the bate for which it had been yearning, for as long as said bate had been dangling before it. And then, oh, what was this?? my heart went sailing through the air, a fishy-bird, never felt so free and spontaneous. But then, oh, what was this?? that very same heart realized too late that it was attached to a hook and a big fat man was standing on the shore reeling it in, as my heart thrashed frantically to be free of what it now realized it was not free of. Oh big fat man, you do not want my fishy heart, you have obviously had enough of your fill, please let me go, already, undo the hook that will leave a scar, but at least my heart will be free for what it was meant for, to swim in the river, and water wish wash over the scar left behind, a hole or a gash where a hook was once lodged...
Ahem.
Blink
Blink
but sometimes the fat man may be just the thing you need to catch you in his net and swoop you out of the river in which you are quickly swimming downstream...it really just depends on who the fat man is and what the river is.
Ahem.
Blink
Blink
You know exactly what I am talking about. If you don't think you do, it's because you're just not looking at it. Here, fishy fishy...

-XOXO,

You, Accrue-d.

{Pre-Script: To fill the space in your brain to capacity, you will need to read this post as the song, " Gone," #50 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)


When you move to inhabit a space, you do not diminish the space you are in. You accrue. Where you once looked around and thought "this space is HUGE! HOW am I ever going to fill it??" you now look and think,"Where did all this @*^&%#$% come from??" and other such groaning too deep for words.

This is one reason people have garage sales

I have been cleaning out the clutter in my house for the past two weeks. Out with the clutter, in in with the sanity. "OH, hello, sanity, I knew there was a semblance of you somewhere...I just couldn't quite access you...I see now that you were pinned down between a board game and a sweatshirt that no longer fits anyone in this house."

-XOXO,

Out of Body

(Pre-Script: To experience the miracles contained herein, you must first go down to the playlist, click on the song, "Suddenly I See," #36 on the playlist, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I have not had an out of body experience in this lifetime, but I almost did. I mean, I think I almost did. It was right at the end of an elephantine pregnancy; elephantine in How I Perceived It's Length, and in How I Was Perceived By The Outside World.

Blink.

Blink.

So there I was, my body laboring to rid itself of the the large child it had been harboring all of these months, with some crazy midwife saying meaningless words to my face, words like, "You're fine." as I said words that made actual sense, like "I'm going to die!" What happened was something between what the midwife said and what I said. I have always thought that there is only room in a body for one person to live. Since there was a baby inhabiting mine, I figured I'd lead the way out. It was like I was there, but I was not all there. I was on the bed and somewhere up there on that wall over there, too. People were talking at me, but it was as though they were speaking through a fog next to which I hovered. I think it was my first act of leading by example in my mothering of this newest baby of mine, because shortly after this, she too came out of my body. She just needed to follow me.

Once she was out, I reentered my body and declared it a war torn zone which would need to be rebuilt over the course of time. It would always bear remembrances of those who had gone before, and come forth out of it. They always leave something of themselves behind, like when people carve their initials into the bark of a tree, only not so aesthetically pleasing. But that body over there of that little one who was now being measured and weighed, it was perfect, a miraculous construction,and one needs to take the importance of birthing a miracle into serious consideration. It is no small thing.
In this particular case, it was an 8 lb thing.
Once she was out, I crawled shakily back inside, built a fire, and hovered there.

Or, as David James Duncan puts it in the book "The River Why,"

"When I finally crept down it was dark...inside, I built a fire and huddled near the flames."
His book is, on the surface, about fishing, and my story is, on the surface, about birthing. Although now that I mention it, those two things are not entirely or even almost unrelated.

-XOXO,

Brick Table

There is a boy in the backyard making a table out of a pile of bricks he has found.

Through the kitchen window I can see him,

building with
what we did not realize we had left there.

The grownups tend to forget these things,

piles of bricks left on the side of a yard,

the remains of some forgotten construction project

or other.

but children often find what we never knew

we'd left behind,

and this is what they focus on,

and this is how they construct themselves.

These bricks look like the bricks of a house where I once lived,
and like the bricks of a wall I recognize.
Some of the bricks are broken, some whole,
but they are the bricks he has found,

so they are the bricks he works with.

his siblings are around him

like buzzing bees orbiting his space,

as siblings do,

but he remains focused, and they play at their own agendas.
In the backyard, a boy is building.
when the boy is finished, he will say,
"come and see the table that I made,"

then warn his sister not to knock it down.
-XOXO,

This beauty

(Pre-Script: The beauty of this poem will be most deeply understood if you read as the song, "Closer," #17 on the playlist, plays in the background, so scroll down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

This mess is the beauty
this beauty a mess-
a timeless obyss shaken down

by those who dare
to approach the ledge;
shaken, not stirred
by curious glances
from bright eyed explorers;
this mess is the beauty,
this beauty a mess-
though curiosity does not move islands
it still might hoist a sail
so we float from one to another
so we float
from one to each other
and discover our own continent
on the way to India.
This beauty is messy
this mess is the beauty

a raw unexplored terrain

for which you think you are ready

but no one is ever ready.

(This beauty is messy.

This mess is the beauty.)

-XOXO,

The heart of the matter

(Pre-script: To keep this post pumping, scroll down to the playlist, click on the song, "Ants Marching," #21 on the playlist, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting,while laughing, since laughter gets the heart pumping...)

"You will survive this, even if it kills you."

Now let's get back to the heart of the matter; the heart is a matter of muscular constitution, pumping the blood, pumping it up, like any good coach, "come on, blood you can do it, you have much territory to cover in a short period of time. those tippy toes are not going to get the circulation they need all on their lonesome, so get cracking. You can do it, and report back to me ASAP!!"

So it seems your heart is pumping for you, regardless of how you feel.

"You will survive this even if it kills you."

who was it that said this famous quote?

Oh yeah, that was just me, and I put it in quotes to make it look important, and to draw your eyes to it, so that you will at least read that part, even if the rest of these words just look like "Woh woh woh woh woh woh woh woh."

-XOXO,

A little elbow grease goes a long way.

(Pre-Script: The layers of this post run deep as you read it while the song "A Thousand Winters Melting," #16 on the playlist, plays in the background, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

This is how we touch each other.

We touch each other by being in the world and bumping elbows with the elbow beside us. We do this while singing, sometimes audibly, sometimes not. Sometimes the song is felt or seen or tasted, but the song is our own, and the singing cannot be helped, though some will try to stifle it.

We do it by painting pictures and holding them up where everyone can see, if they choose to look...they might not look. Even if they do, what they see and understand might and probably will be very different from what you see and understand. But that's okay; you are the one holding the picture.

When I was a child, I used to say that I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up because of my fascination with ancient things which I have tried to explain before, but can never fully explain, and I get frustrated trying, so this time I am not even going to try to explain it, and I now feel better having not tried to explain the unexplainable.

Ahem.

You have this in yourself, too, deep passions that flow through your muscles, your brains, that pump like blood through your heart and your mind over and over. Whatever they are, you can't convince someone else to love the same thing, or even to see it how you see it. How can they, when they have not had the same experience as you, they are not experiencing the passion you are passionate about with the same life experience behind their eyes and ears, the same emotional complexity that is you. So even if the other person develops the same life dreams and passions as you, s/he has arrived there through his or her own unique set of circumstances, after the stimulus has filtered through his or her own inner complexities. The other person might not even be looking at it from the same side of his or her brain as you.
Do you think any of the other 5th grade kids in my class shared my archaeological passion with me? Not a one. In fact, I did not find anyone who shared this particular passion until 2 years ago. She came in the form of a sister in law. Hooray for Sara, my first archaeological passion match! She loved watching the same documentaries of unearthed tombs that I loved watching as a child, as well. So there is that. But I would still bet you $37.50 that if we were archaeologists in the field, we would have different styles, we would find ways that we were different in our focus. So there is that, too. And I respect that about me, and about her.

I guess the point is you just play your song all the way through, the way you need to play it the truest, and don't let the hard of head and heart convince you to shut up or try to be just like someone else, since only you can play your own song. Some people will listen and get it, some will sort of get it, some will think they get it but won't. Some will be able to point out nuances in the music that you did not consciously percieve. The "not getting it completely" is good, too, because it's stimulating and intriguing to let the mystery between two people flow. Really, most people just hear your song and go,

"Oh, a song!"

As you continue to sing your song, those around you are encouraged to fully sing theirs, in whatever form they take, as well. Then there is harmony and counter points that never existed before in the world, and everything is deepened and expanded.

This beauty is often messy.

This is how we touch each other.

Blink

Blink

...Your elbows are showing.

-XOXO,

Delusional Dreaming

(Pre-Script: This post will fill your mind with perfect nonsense and logic when paired with the song, "Superman," by Five for Fighting, #10 on the playlist, so scroll down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

You can't convince people to believe in your dreams. You can't convince them to believe in your delusions. You can't convince them to place each in the same category you do, either. Some dreams are delusional, but you are too passionate about them to realize it, and when people try to tell you, burst your cloud dream bubble and pull you back into reality, you get mad. Sometimes it's better not to live in reality. That is what sleep is for. But some dreams, even while awake, really are delusional, and that's why they've only ever been dreams, not realities. It takes someone crazy enough to believe in the possibility of the dream to make a delusion come true. What if Walt Disney had never believed in his own delusional dreams? It would NOT be a small world after all*...and someday your prince would NOT come*...and you could NEVER become a real boy*...and if no "Magic"* had ever transformed that orchard in Southern California, it would have probably eventually been turned into the parking lot or housing district of someone else's rational, non delusional, in no way magical dream, instead of Disneyland.

Blink

Blink

And THEN where would the happiest place on Earth* be??

Just the happy delusional fertile soil of all of our imaginations. Some of us nurture our imaginations with more fertile soil than others.

I have always been a wild and wacky dreamer, both awake and asleep. As a kid, I had a whole imaginary world that I would play in every day. It is exactly what Barney** encourages kids to do, but mine did not involve a large dinosaur,** or cloyingly annoying children who all get along and agree with each other seamlessly, like only delusional dream children would**. My imaginary world was ripe with strife and tension, hope and longing. But I knew the difference between that and reality.

Once when I was about 8, a Real Person friend named Noelani came over to play, I said to her, "do you have any imaginary friends?" she said "Yes," so I said, "do you mind if we play with our imaginary friends instead?" She was cool with it, so she hung out in one corner of the yard, I hung out in another, each playing with our own respective imaginary friends. I don't know what was happening in her little world, but I could occasionally hear the sound of her voice as she got along with, then argued with, someone, and someone else. At the time, it didn't consciously occur to me that the message I was sending to my Real Person Friend was not very nice, and went something like: "the people I make up in my head are more interesting to me than the actual person who is you right now. No offense. But go away. Hee hee." Gosh, how completely juvenile of me. I have totally outgrown all of this.

"But Michelle,"

Oh, excuse me, would you look at that, it's my, um, Gentle Imaginary Reader, once again interrupting...hee hee...

"Michelle, what about me?"

Oh, Gentle Imaginary Reader, take it easy, I didn't mean YOU.

"I mean, seriously, Michelle, aren't I just as real as any other figment of your imagination?"

Of course, Gentle Imaginary Reader, of course. Relax.

Ahem.

hee hee,

okay, so sue me. I mean, sure I have an active imagination, but at least I do not ask the people I am with to leave me alone so that I can instead hang out with my imaginary friends...even if I want to. Even if I think my made up people might be better company. Because that would be delusional, and someone might want to lock me up somewhere more permanent than just within the inner confines of my own mind if they heard me talking to me, myself, and I.

-XOXO,

*All Disney references.

**All elements of the Barney children's TV show.

Dear God

(Pre-Script: This poem is best read as the song, "Breathe," #55 on the playlist, plays in the background, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

If you can redeem the preciousness of a thing,
even when the surface is scarred from

the fights to wrestle back what was let go,

even when the surface becomes blistered,

calloused, gray, or pockmarked,

if you can still redeem the most precious pieces,
then do not let them lose their lustre;

hide them safely,
while I fight these beasts I see today as beasts
but at night, I want to snuggle them, soft as teddy bears,
soft as pillows that numb this anxious mind into
the weightlessness of impossible dreams
that have no place in waking day life
or open eyed living,

but the fangs they hide rip invisible things to shreds

even as their lullibies sound like redemption,

like safety,

like freedom,

even as I dream away

each part of who I am.

-XOXO,

A brief history of beer.

(Pre-Script: This post will expose taste buds you never knew you had when paired with the song, "32 Flavors." #22 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)
From what I can tell,
There once was a man in Milwaukee who was a wheat harvester. He was not a very good one, though, so he was very poor, and all he had to drink was the urine of the rats who frequently inhabited his wheat. He was such a bad wheat harvester that his wheat was always fermenting. So he would burn the fermented wheat, and the warmth of that fire would keep him from freezing to death. One day he thought to himself, "instead of using this highly flammable material to light the fire that will provide the warmth by which I will not freeze to death this day, I will drink it. It can't be worse than the rat urine I have been drinking." Upon drinking his fermented wheat, he declared,"Well, I'll be, it's no worse than the rat urine I have been drinking." This thought process progressed until the man bottled his fermented wheat, called it "beer," sold it to people who tasted it and said," Well, it's no worse than the rat urine we've been drinking," and kept buying it, mostly because of the TV commercials the man put on TV that featured Clydesdale horses clomping through the snow. Sometimes men would get drunk from drinking the beer and pull their women around by the hair and smash the empty glass bottles on top of each other's heads, so then it was questionable whether the beer was a good idea or not, but the people kept telling themselves,"It's no worse than the rat urine we used to drink," and that settled that. So now there is beer in the world.

Friends, it is easy to write a history of anything, as long as you make sure to leave few true words in there, like "beer," "ferment," and "Clydesdale."

-XOXO,

Stepping and Leaping

(Pre-Script: This post will fling the doors of your mind wide open when paired with the song, "Good Intentions," #20 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song while simultaneously unlockinging your mind, then come back and resume reading...I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)
I.
Sometimes you might want to get into a room, but you're not comfortable walking through the door. You don't TRUST the door to get you through to the other side, even though it goes with all the laws of physics...if you walk through the door, you will on the other side of it, you will be in the room. No visual tricks played to distract you while someone takes the hinges off and flips the door around to make you THINK you are in the room when really you are still just in the hallway, or outside, on the wrong side of the door. Maybe you trust the door but aren't sure that once you enter the room you will be able to get back out. What if the door slams shut behind you and automatically locks, with no way to unlock it but from the outside? What if it was a trick to trap you all along? What if after the door slams shut behind you, you see that there is a list of rules on the back of it that you could not see before you were trapped in the room, but now you are stuck here, and must adhere to the rules? Such things do exist, and it is a good question to ask and have an answer you can live with before walking into that room. Because some rooms are worth getting locked into, you don't mind if it slams shut behind you. But some lock behind you before you have a choice to think through how you will feel when you cannot get back out again. So it's good to weigh these options carefully-what you'll lose, vs. what you'll gain, and is it worth it, or is it really just a door that you open and close from inside or out, freely? Can you ever trust it, the decision you just made or did not make, to enter the room, to stay out of the room. Because you could always have made the decision you did not make.
II.
These days, it seems to me that hope comes in the form of little moments of peace. They are like delicate lily pads on a pond, and I am the frog leaping from one to the next in order to get to the lush grass on the other side of the pond. Sometimes it seems the lily pads are spaced widely apart, and that my lung capacity and leg strength will give out before I reach the next lily pad, and I will land splat in the water. Sometimes I land spat in the water, in my most valiant and graceful attempts at a leap, sometimes it is even a farther leap than I have ever lept before, and I want to shout to all the other frogs, "Did you see that, did you see that??" but still, I have landed in the water, and now I am wet, and this is frustrating, but it's not the worst thing, because I am a frog, an amphibian, and thank God I can swim. (Thank you, GOD! For your foresight in design!) So I swim or tread water until another lily pad comes along, or until I hit the solid ground, whichever comes first. Then I collapse in a heap there, gasp for breath, and while open mouthed gasping, a fly flies by, and I stick out my long sticky frog tongue and am nourished again, ready to go back out onto the pond from which I have just emerged, to live the life I was created to live. I could always have made the decision I did not make. Unless that's not true, and I never could have made the decision I didn't make.

-XOXO,

Boom Boom Pop

(Pre-Script: This post is dynamically explosive when paired with the song, "Here In Your Arms," #51 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

What I remember most about fireworks is driving somewhere where there is a lot of traffic, getting stuck in it, trying to find a place to park, finally parking somewhere, getting out of the car, looking up and the view is obscured by buildings or trees, usually I see something, though, flashes of color on an otherwise dark sky. Lots of boom boom pop. Then big boom boom popping for the grand finale. Then driving home through more traffic. There is a lot of effort put into a little boom boom pop, so the boom boom pop must be special and fantastic. Sometimes the fireworks pop right over your head, but that doesn't usually happen unless you are in Toontown Disneyland, and when it does happen, your first reaction is to want to run for cover, you think you will get hurt, you think they will fall right on your skin and burn you, but they won't, they will just thrill you for a little bit, that's all. But most of life is not spent in Toontown Disneyland, particularly when it's fireworks time, which is every single night. Most of us wait for the once a year explosions once a year, after a long trafficy drive which leads to a parking crisis and limited view. But the boom boom pop, when it happens, man, it happens. What a sight. And I want to tell you something: Listen close: Are you ready?? Because if I have learned anything from Fireworks, it is this:

A lot of people will go to great lengths for just a little boom boom pop.

-XOXO,

Precious Metal

(Prescript: Before reading this poem, go down to the playlist, click on the song, "Bring Me to Life," #37 on the playlist, then come back and read it with that song playing in the background. I'll wait...) (...see, told you...)

i am

make it stop.

twisting

make it stop.

around

make it stop.

from in front of myself
make it stop.
to get away from the fire
make it stop.

that flames up

make it stop.
within my raging heart
make it stop.
since i can't twist away

make it stop.

from what is inside

make it stop.

of myself,
make it stop.
i writhe instead
make it stop.
and it burns

make it stop.

things melt,
make it stop.
shapes form,

make it stop.

unform
make it stop.
i am leaking

make it stop.

dripping all over
make it stop.
while it is melty soft
make it stop.
the top is constantly being scraped off
scraped off
scraped off
make it stop.
make it stop.
make it stop.
with a sharp

make it stop.

and accurate

make it stop.

knife
make it stop.
while every heartbeat screams
make it STOP.

-XOXO,

Implosions

(Pre-Script: Don't panic, just go down to the playlist, click on the song, "How To Save A Life," #35 on the playlist, then come back and resume reading...I'll wait, in heart pounding expectation...) (...still waiting...)

It is possible to be having a nervous breakdown without realizing you are having one.
It is possible to be having an anxiety or panic attack without realizing you are having one.
I think that if you have one and don't realize it, you might just think that you feel crummy somehow, but you're not sure how to put your finger on it, or maybe you are sure how to put your finger on it, maybe you can accurately describe what you are experiencing and feeling, but you do not know that these symptoms within and happening to you are what = a breakdown, anxiety, and/or a panic attack.
It's possible to be happy and not realize it, too. It's possible to be happy and feel like you don't deserve it, so that causes you anxiety which makes you panic and leads to a nervous breakdown wherein your only choice is to ride the wave to shore, or sabotage yourself, your joy and peace, for what you can relax and take your shoes off in like the dog doo that is misery, failure, and defeat.
Sometimes you feel something tugging at you from the inside, pulling on your left ventricle, causing the blood to pool, the heart muscle to work harder and faster, and you are quite sure that you have not just stepped on a StairMaster. Sometimes you don't want to think about why your left ventricle is being tugged on, like a toddler tugging on the leg of the grown up he wants to lift him up and look him in the eye and listen to his story and hold him close. Who wants to hold a trauma close? But sometimes a trauma acts like it wants to be held close and listened to over and over and over again. But then it eventually to gets tired of it's own endless tale, and falls asleep for awhile. Like a toddler.
Age is a state of mind. My mind is in the state of Colorado. People who live in Colorado (mentally, at least) are healthy and mountainous and perpetually youngish with ever expanding lung capacity. They have less anxiety because they have discovered their inner endorphins. You know what they say, "an endorphin rush a day keeps the doctor away," and you know EXACTLY which doctor they mean, too...it's the exact same one you have been avoiding like the plague he is hoping to save you from.

XOXO,

Hope is a cream that you rub on your eyeballs every morning.

(Pre-Script: This post will burst wide open with hope and possibility when paired with the song, "Only Hope," #49 on the playlist...so please stop whatever you are doing, go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait, in hopeful expectation...) (...still waiting...)

I just turned on the TV and heard, "3 convenience stores robbed in an hour. We'll tell you why police think teenagers were involved, on the news at 10."

Blink

Blink

Um, do you think maybe they think teenagers were involved because three convenience stores were robbed in an hour? Because I dunno, if I hear that three convenience stores were robbed in an hour, I just assume that teenagers are involved, that just reeks of "Teenagers-Were-Probably-Involved-Majorly-Obvious-Sauce" to me...with a little Clue Phone Spice peppered all over it, too. Or maybe a lot of Clue Phone Spice peppered all over it. I hate stealing, it is just so "I am desperate and hopeless beyond repair" It is just so Jean Val Jean, 24601, "my family will die unless I bring them this loaf of bread"* dramatic. But why do these kids feel that in their less than 20 years of life in one of the richest parts of the world they have reached a point of such hopelessness? Or are they just bored, and want to somehow feel alive again, mixed with immaturity that makes them not care who else gets hurt in their quest for fun and adrenaline? Or were they just craving chips and Slurpee's? Mixed with the immaturity yada yada I just mentioned two sentences ago?
Everything wants to hang on to it's own life. Everything wants to save it. After the convenience store news story, I just swatted a bug that was resting calmly on the wall, and just before the fly swatter could make contact with it's little intrusive body, that perfectly still probably sleeping critter started flying erratically, just out of fly swatter reach, and sure enough, it saved it's own life. I have no idea where it ended up. It's probably like, on my back, or something, about to suck my blood as I write this, and I have no idea, and I am making myself paranoid because of the audacity of even an almost microscopic insect.

Blink.

Okay, so it was a little bigger than almost microscopic, but you see my point...don't you? Some points are not as obvious as I think they are. Some are more so. I am not always good at judging which is which. According to the evening news, neither are newscasters, sometimes, at least.

We are not meant to live without hope. Without hope, we perish. With hope, sometimes we perish anyway. Without hope, we perish while we should be living, though, and that's the worst.

-XOXO,

*From the musical "Les Miserables," which my friend Gina and I were obsessed with in High School, and my friends Scott and Heather and I were obsessed with after High School.