Hello, Robot Sister

Dad: Hey, sorry to wake you up, but your little brother wanted to talk to you

Brother: (in his best robot voice)  Hello, robot sister
(phone rustles)

Dad: (in the background) say more, mijo. Say more!!
(silence)
Well, sorry.  I thought he was going to say more or I wouldn't have called you.
(little brother is heard screaming for joy in the background)

Best Phone Call

Ever.

it's the truth

I am a control freak 
with no self control

fuck me if i'm wrong, but don't you want to kiss me?

you don't know the first thing about falling

Break my arms around my love and be forgiven by the time my lover comes

Let's take a second to focus on the unattainable

I desire the things which will destroy me in the end

august 27

Because when you don't have your best friend behind you, it's like nothing you do is right or good or worthwhile.  I don't want to sit here and second guess what you're thinking and feeling about me, when we've spent years completing each others every thought.  I don't what a few plane rides over and some guys who may or may not be here next year to demolish that.  So why am I feeling so shitty over those exact two things and you?  My best friend. My sister. It shouldn't work this way.
...
So who apologizes first?

9*12*11

You are not
     My child and this is not
          My lover and you will not
                Haunt my dreams
                     Like I've been asking you too
                         Anymore

I want to tell
     A man that I love about
          This life defining
               Time defying moment
                    But I can't because
                         I need to protect
                              The only thing
                                   You ever had
                                        That was ever yours
                                             Your memory
But i do not want
     To create a stigma
          A frightful cautionary area
               Where you are my
                    Dirty Little Secret
                         but I do need a heart strong enough
                              To be able to know
                                   That that's not
                                        Who you are
                                             Who you were
                                                  Who you never came to be

paradise

I hallucinated a man today
Walking on the brick road with a box in hand
I looked away and when I turned back there was nothing but the hot and heavy air
And then the bricks beneath my feet fell through
And I tumbled into Insanity.

And it's been beautiful ever since.

Baby brother learns about death

[my two year old brother to the cow skull on our fence]

brother: What happened to the eyes?

me: They went away when it died

brother: Did daddy shoot that it?

Dad: No, daddy didn't shoot that one.
        It died in the prairie

brother: It died? It fell down?

Dad: Yeah, it fell down.

brother: (looks at the skull and pets it)
             Is it going to be okay?

Dad: Yeah, it'll be okay.  There's nothing wrong with being dead.

Excerpts from the mind of a 2 year old

Sun Clouds
Sun clouds are the clouds with really big heads that stretch all the way across the sky.  Like that one.  That's a sun cloud.  And they look really far away.  They make Sun Castles.

The Castle Across the Street (a.k.a. The Sun Castle)
What are they building over there, sister?
They're digging up the dirt to build a castle.  For the sun clouds to live in. 
You were already there.  You liked it. 
I was there.  I really liked it. 
I'm going back to stay.

Sun Birds
Sun birds are birds of fire.
They make sun clouds.

Robot in the Tree
His name is Incharges.  He's starwars and sticks, so don't touch that tree.
And he'll come and be incharges.
He's coming!! It's the torches, quick!! Shoot him! Shoot him!
...I shot him.

Three Crosses

There's something beautiful about this place.

It's old, it's dirty, it's full of things that other sensible people would throw away

20 years ago.

But that's what gives it an air of magic.

An undeniable feeling of home and wonder even if it's your first time setting foot here.

Always something to discover, hidden under the tall, dry grass and the long, crawling vines and the fine desert sand.

Project left unfinished, waiting for the next pair of willing hands. 

Life waiting to come back, to defy modern asthetics. 

The people, the trucks, the rusted old bikes, the chicken coop,

fresh trees twisting through the brown dirt, 

wooden doors splintering aginst the flaking paint.

It's home.

It's perfect.

some things i have learned

"I am weak but not giving in"

I tell you all the things

I think will make you happy

I'll try and show you 

all the good that is familiar to me

and do what i can

to keep you from the path that's caused me pain

that i don't want you to see

But in the end it's all on your shoulders

it's always on your shoulders

we can only help carry the load 

when you're willing to give us something to hold onto

on the days when

we're supposed to be

holding hands and having fun

there's nothing 

to be done

but sit 

and smile 

and think of those days

when mom could wipe our tears

and soothe all our fears

even though we deserved

to be scared.

so instead of filling baskets

with colored eggs and candies

i'll sit

and call you out

on all the shit you've done

and think of how much fun

it'll be when you get out.

little sister

merry sunshine

i know you are better

the best if you wanted to be

i want you to be good

i want you to see the world

but i won't 

let you bring

our souls down

Little sister

other half

you are stronger

you are better

than i could ever dream

and we can see

she has it in her

let's help it shine

when she's ready.

"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

I wonder if my mom knew that the last words she said to me

would be the last words she said to me.

A big part of me thinks knows that she did.

I wonder if she was frustrated or hurt or content or lonely...

I wonder just how immensely difficult-

how mind blowingly difficult that must have been.

How do you call your 13 year old daughter to you to tell her the last thing you will ever tell her?

How do you know what to say?

I wish I would have taken that moment more seriously.

My tired mom, sitting in her dark room

that's what I saw it as.

"you're beautiful just the way you are"

that's what she told me.

or the gist of what she told me.

I don't remember exactly becuase 

I felt uncomfortable that she was saying this.

I wanted to get out of that room and wait for her to be better.

"I love you too, Mom"

That's what I told her.

But it was just a regular "I love you."

It wasn't bursting with the love I felt for her. 

It didn't even begin to say how I really, deeply felt about her. 

And the few hours after that

When she fell into her coma

I hope, I pray that she heard me speaking.

It was only a few hours later but I was so different 

I had grown years in those hours.

All I wanted was for her to hold me-

Instead I held her.

All I wanted was for her to stroke my face and tell me everything was going to be okay.

That I didn't need to be afraid.

That everything would be... okay-

Instead, those were the words I whispered in her ear as I cuddled her small, frail body.

I hope she heard me say that I was sorry.

That I love her.

That she was the best mom I could have ever had.

I hope that the tear, 

that single tear I witnessed 

fall from her right eye the moment she took her last breath 

was not of pain.

I hope it was her way of telling me she did hear

and that she didn't want to leave, but she had to.

I hope she knows that that tear has stayed with me

Meant more to me

Spoken louder

Than anything else she had said before.

She loved me until the very end.

Some things don't need words.

Oh, the places I will go

I have a journal where I keep all my random thoughts and extensive lists.  The pages are starting to get to that point where they're so overrun with ink and the pressures of my hand when I write that they just kind of flop over when you open it up.  

Effortless.  

Loose bindings are always a good sign.

Anyway

One of those lists is of books 

Books to read and books that I have read

I love this list

And this weekend I took some time to add to it

Old titles that I've decided need to be reread now that I'm older

or just because they were so good I want to take the time to lose myself in it one more time

New titles that I haven't heard of but my friends rave for 15 minutes on how it

changed their life or how they've

read their copy so many times the binding fell apart

(loose bindings are always a good sign)

Lots and lots and lots of books.

And I am so excited!!!!!

I absolutely cannot wait to finish my last final

and get on my plane 

and travel for nine hours with my backpack so full of books I have to work at making it fit under the seat in front of me.

And when I'm finally home in my desert environment

I'm going to get totally and utterly lost in the pages of my books that I won't even notice how intense the sun was until I feel the sunburn the next day.

Summer could not get here fast enough.

Bittersweet dreams are made of these

My mom was in my dream last night.

I think we were at a summer camp and competing in some camp olympics, or maybe it was a fun day on a college campus and my competitive nature just turned it into some freaky competitive game.

My little sister Mari was there but I couldn't really have fun because she kept on wandering off and I knew I was responsible for her.  I was responsible for her because my mom had told me to be until she got better.

I'm going through the masses of people laughing and having a great time and all I am is annoyed because no one will help me find my sister. I keep getting visual flashes of her doing something fun and safe but I know she's not really safe until she's with me.  And then I get flashes of my mom.

She looked okay; not how she did when she was really sick but how she did when she was up and about; when she was Mom.  But instead of feeling happy, I feel doom.  I feel like I need to split in two: one of me to find Mari, one of me to get to my mom until it's too late.  Every muscle in my body is tense.  Every breath is quick and every movement is deliberate.  

But the competition is still going on and I don't want to lose so I join in on one of the games.  It's a slide down a mountain and you have to see how fast you can go down and climb back up.  So I'm going, I'm going, I'm halfway down when I have a vivid image of my mom laying on hospital bed that hospice brought for her, in her dark room, by herself and I can feel her loneliness.  So halfway down the mountain slide where I know I'm going to win, I flip around and scramble back up.

I don't even see the ground underneath me because there are so many images and moments of my mom that they completely take over my vision.  But that's what's pulling me up.  That and an intense sense of panic that I went down the mountain without finding Mari and that was so wrong and I need to get her.  Every ounce of strength that I have is going into getting back up that mountain and getting to my sister and my mom.

When I finally get to the top, I see my Mari.  She's laughing and looks so beautiful and so grown up.  And I'm dangling on the edge of the mountain, seeing her with one side of my brain and seeing dozens of images of my mom on the other side.  And I can't get up. 
I want to go back down the mountain because I want to win. 
I want to get to my sister but she looks so perfect without me. 
I want to get to my mom but I realize that there's nothing to get to.  That she's already gone.  That she's been gone for five years.  That even though I can see so many images of her in that very moment, they're just images.  And I sense that.  I feel that.  And it take's everything out of me.

It's the end of the dream and I'm in one of those half awake half asleep modes.  Things start skipping around.

I'm at the base of the mountain with Mari.  She's holding a trophy she won for sticking her head in a giant tub of icee mix and drinking it all without spilling it.  I laugh and I say Mom would be proud of her.  But she doesn't respond.  Instead she looks at me, looks in my eyes, and we connect.
We both see my mom; healthy, smiling, standing.
We are both torn in two.
Seeing her is a rare blessing.
Seeing her reminds us that she can never be closer than that image can bring us.
We want to hear, hold her, feel her.
Mari looks away.  She laughs and smiles with the rest of the people.

At least she has her trophy.

Dear _____,

I hope you know that I think you're going to be great.
Greater than you already are. 
Greater than you can ever dream of being. 
I hope you know that there's not a single second of my life I regret having you in it. 
That every time you succeed, I am proud beyond measure. 
That every time you fail but refuse to give in, I am proud beyond measure. 
I hope you know that if I had to give up everything if it meant you achieved your dreams, I would do so selflessly and still consider it a successful life. 
I hope you know that you have made me, shaped me, sometimes forced me into becoming a better person than I would have been otherwise. 
That you have helped me grow.

That you have set the bar high.
That no matter what I say or do, you will never see yourself the way I do. 
That no matter what you say or do, I will never turn my back on you. 
I hope I am as good to you as you are to me. 
I hope I always do right by you. 
I can't wait to see you become who you are meant to be. 
I hope you can't either.
With love,
______

2 am scribbles

Because I know you'll be sleeping

I can write you these words

Not much more than a whisper

But I know they'll be heard

Warm autumn air

That's how we parted

Crisp leaves and footsteps fall

That's when the heartache started

Don't be afraid

Deep breathes are for you

I left with high hopes

This time, I'm gonna see this through

Warm summer breeze

Came through here, the South

They'll bring me back again

We'll make a home of this house

Some Ambiguity

So,
When you say
"Do you want to stay over?"
and
"I have pajamas you can wear"
"but
I know you have class in the morning"
does that mean
I can stay over
And sleep?
Or does that mean
I can stay over
and dotdotdot
...

College is not much better
in the romance department
than high school was
But only in some ways

I guess girls are always
just going to be
baffling

Or maybe it's just that
I've continued with my same level of
naivety

Either way
I remain at a loss on
How to deal with this
Ambiguity

It's not all high fives and keggers

So there's this thing that I'm trying out.  Some aspects of it are kind of new to me, some are very familiar.  I've actually been doing it for many a year now but every time I think I get it down into a manageable system, someones goes and throws anther curve in the road.  This thing is called being a student.  This new part of it is known to some as being a college student.   

It goes by several aliases, some of which you may or may not familiar with, depending on what type of college student you are.  Some of the more commonly used aliases used by yours truly include, but are not limited to:

Sleep embezzler.  Confidence annihilator.  Culture shock central. You'll-never-have-enough-time plaza.  And my personal favorite (or so it would seem with the frequency of usage lately) is the Oh-Shit-I-just-woke-up-and-class-starts-in-five-minutes  generator.  

Guess who's about to be late for class...

Yes, it would seem that college and my inability to to manage time has not played out well for me this first year.  Not played out well at all.  

Spongebob knows what's up

I know there are other students out there like me.  I know because I see them chain smoking outside of the library.  I know because sometimes I inch my way over until I'm within breathing proximity of that lethally calming smoke and meditate in it until my brain has been soothed to a workable level.  

I do not, however, know if my chain smoking buddies will be there next semester.  I guess there's this thing that institutions of higher learning like to call "academic probation". While I myself have not been put on this "probation"...sometimes I feel like we're cutting it dangerously close.

Because there are other college students at this place of learning.  And these college students are not renaming this school names with such negative connotations as mine.  They call it things like, "Best time of my liiiife". and, "I'm so totally going to med school here, why would you ever want to leave?!".  and "I always find time to get my 6 hours of beauty sleep in".

These are the ones I just want to start a fight with for no reason.  These are the ones that I try and say make me look bad (even though it's really just me making me look bad).  These are the ones that really piss me off if for no other reason than because that's what that's who I was supposed to be.

I worked my supple little ass off in high school to get to college.  4.03 GPA, stellar extra curricular activities, outside job, teachers loved me, I freaking OWNED high school.  And I was so excited to graduate and get to a place where I would amongst peers who were as motivated and smarter and as excited about changing the world as I was. Am. Was?  

Now I'm here and...I can't stand it.  These people are not in it to change the world. They're in it to add to their trust funds.  I'm stereotyping a little bit, not all of them have trust funds.  But they do have very nice leather wallets.  

I'm searching in the nooks and crannies of this place and I can't even scrape up enough passion to spread on my toast.  I'm staying up late because I do all this extra work for all these groups I'm in because I joined all these groups because I wanted to find friends and I did but they're all lazy.  

No go-getters.  

And it's freaking me out.  It's freaking me out because I can feel it spreading.  Going to my feet making me slower getting to class. Going to my hands making it harder to write my papers.  Going to my face making it harder and harder to smile.  Going to my brain making it harder and harder to stay who I am.  I'm not this bad student! Who the fuck is this indifferent, distracted, quiet chick?  

Whoever she is, she seems to have some rather negative views on this new part of life called college.  

Something must be done to change that...

Astronomy isn't real anyway

Is it possible?

I have come to see the stars without their true brilliance.  Betelgeuse supernovas into oblivion: given in to selfish ways. 

I want to find you beautiful. 

I want to be pulled into you. 

But I'm not in that bundle of stars. 

If you could have accepted that to begin with, we could have saved each other.

So rip me out of this.

Get out of this gravitational pull running head on into Armageddon.  

Let me see someone else in my love. 

Getting that tumultuous taste from my body is-effortlessly impossible. 

Coming down from a high, words are vacuous and inconsistent.
I wish I could find the right orbit. 

Who's the little one?

There are some things I will never outgrow.

When I was little, I lived in a two story house with my mom, two younger sisters (twins), and my older brother.  We were a beautiful little family.  We were a perfect team.

Although I am a year and a half older than the twins, there are little pockets of time in which I seem to be the baby.

Looking up from a box of Lucky Charms (those magical marshmallows get me every time) in the middle of the store and finding myself completely alone is one instance.  I freeze, I panic, I am convinced I will never be found again.

Walking down a long, or medium...any length of hallway is another.  It can be well lit, it can be dark.  Either way, the patterns of the wall become the twisted and gnarled bodies of vengeful ghost, bound to detach themselves from their plaster prison and drag me in with them.  Or, the girls from the Shining will appear in front of my eyes, trapping me, forcing me to play with them...forever.  This can happen in the blink of an eye; thus, I do not blink when I walk down hallways alone.  Safety first.

Terror.  Turn and Run.

The biggest baby issue is the most inconvenient, as it occurs with the most necessary of actions and in the most necessary of rooms: the bathroom.

I cannot, to this day-and I am a freshman in college- walk into a bathroom, do my business, and come back to my room without being in a constant state of panic.  First of all, you have to walk down a hall to get there.  Secondly, I always wait until the very last moment possible to go.  Meaning of course, that my nerves are already shot and I am on the very precipice of bladder destruction.  Then, once I finally get to the toilet, I have to shut the door and/or stall and trap myself in a small box of doom while I become extremely vulnerable to any sort of attack.  This includes but is not limited to: ninjas, ghosts, demons, murders, crazy clowns, hidden cameras, phantoms from scooby-doo.  The loud sounds of the plumbing, the mirrors with the gross florescent lighting... it's all very nerve-wracking.

.Doom.

When I was younger and I lived with my beautiful family in our two story house, my unreasonable fears were very much present.  However, I had one weapon which I could yield and dispel all paranoia's.  With this weapon, all harmful spirits would shrink away to nothing and I was safe from all no matter the time or place.

This weapon was my kid sister, Clari.

Her tiny stature, her dirty blond hair, and her footy pajamas were all I needed.  Almost every night, I would beg her to sleep upstairs with me in my bed and almost every night she would look up at me and oblige.  She didn't like sleeping under the sheets but I liked to cuddle and warm my cold feet on her always toasty ones, so she would grudgingly agree to my blanket arrangement.  In the middle of the night, if the forces of nature were too strong to will away, I would whisper her name and press my arm into her shoulder until her little eyes cracked open.  With the bravery I thought only the most hardened of adult could posses, she would walk beside me down the dark hall to the bathroom.  She would reach up and slide her hand to turn on the light (anything could have been there to grab her) and she would wait.  She never had to say a word, she never got angry, she never got scared.  She was my nighttime hero.

When I was 13 and she was 11, our beautiful family and our perfect team was forced to scatter. It was hard for me to adjust.  I didn't need her for nighttime calls anymore, but for other, more simple things: stern fashion advice, a reassuring hug before school, the knowledge of 100% certainty that there would be a little soul to watch cartoons with at the crack of dawn.  These little things that should have been my contribution to her as the older sister.  These little things that have been a part of her nature from day one, that she doesn't give a second thought about, that she has no idea help me survive the terrors of my own imagination.  My little sister is more of grownup than I could ever be.

I, at 19 years, 5'8",  will always look up to my 17 year old, 5'4"nighttime hero.

That's one thing I will never outgrow.

Rip off the Shirt of Convention

Is it proper blogging etiquette to post more than one a day?  Is it wrong that even though it might be, I'm going to do it anyway because spring break is a time to let loose?  So watch out, Girls Gone Wild, cause this one's 'bout to rip off the shirt of convention and let the bazoombas of freedom bounce shamelessly. 

Speaking of spring break, here's a sample of my week in Florida for a community service trip:

1st service project March 6, 2011

...So, I'm back at the cabin while the rest of the group is out shopping for groceries.  While they are gone I WILL finish my paper.  I can feel it in my bones.  While I was picking through the thorny weeds at Mr. Mulch's house, I found myself going into some self reflection.  and I wish I came out with some philosophical break through like Stephen did in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  Unfortunately, the only real note worthy thoughts included the realization that gardening is great, my mom must have been 10x as outgoing as me, and that I get bored easily.  In high school, it was easier to stay engaged at school because it was like that was all that mattered.  That got harder senior year when I really started to question whether all of it was worth it; whether school and education was all that really mattered.

So, obviously, the best solution to my collge work woes would be to take classes and find a major that will give me a life that truly matters.  To me.  I think that my lack of dirction (what do I want to do with life) has left me with no goals or aspirations.  And instead of continuing to work hard to keep all my options open, I'm failing and shutting myself out of everything.
But that's enough of that. I don't want to write any more about school this week.  this is spring break.  So I'm going to give myself a break, refocus, recenter, find some clarity, and go again.
I could do this forever though.  I can't tell if it's the sound of the wind through the leaves or the ocean, but the way it syncopates with the chirping and cries and whistles of the birds is fantastic.  The sun is starting to shine but not enough to take the goosebumps off my legs.  Feet kicking soccer balls and hands passing volleyballs go in between enthusiastic yells and the occasional hand clap.  Even though the ocean is far to my left the leaves on the ground in front of me give off a silvery reflection of the sun; it looks like water.  Give me this. Give me jobs to make this kind of world better for everyone, and I'll be the best at it.  Give me this.
I'm a natural March 8, 2011
I got to cut down an infected tree with a chainsaw and the boss for today said I was a natural.  I felt like calling my dad, he'd be so proud
...carpenter bees are starting to come out of the woodwork.  And even though they don't sting or bite, I still look like a tiny cry baby when they follow me in droves!! I am not my mothers daughter.  She used to smack bees our of her face.  There is a part of this little forest that I have to stay out of...
Beach:Success March 8, 2011
The salt water makes my skin sticky and my hair curly.  Emily showed me the little clams that burrow back into the sand.  I love life right now.

Google search illustrates my burrowing clams

What a Night! March 10, 2011
Oh man, I just had one of the best nights.  Are you ready to hear how this was so amazing?  I went to sleep at 10:45pm and it was AWESOME! Then we had to wake up at 7am to be out of the door by 7:20.  And that was awesome, too!  I feel so fresh!!!!! And I got to give Clari her morning wakeup call again which I love love love everyday because I get to hear her beautiful morning voice.  Even this music is bouncing my blood.  I love this morning!  I've got to start doing this more often.
P.S. Spanish moss is beautiful.
Post Beach March 10, 2011
My feet are covered in white sand and my thighs are huuuuuuge.  It's pretty awesome.
...I really have to be careful about who I throw my crazy ideas out to.  Some people actually take me up on them.
...I want to take a road trip this summer but I need a job real bad.  If I get in shape I could be a stripper.

Crazy Acquaintance

This is exciting.
I'm excited.

Putting fingers to the keys and starting a new blog is like putting the key into a new car and getting ready for a cruise about town.  It's like slipping the collar around a shaking puppy's neck.  It's like shaking hands with a total stranger and you just know something crazy's going to come out of being acquainted with them.  

There are a couple things one should know before continuing on the adventure I hope for this to become:

1. I am not great with grammar.  In fact, let's not play games here.  I might be one of the worst.  It's a shame, I know.  A crying shame.  I'm inconsistent with the mistakes that I make and I make them frequently. I think.  Commas and semicolons are two of my very good friends in the writing world so they get placed in places that could surely function well without them.  Many of my friends are very well trained and have a thorough knowledge of grammatical rules and regulations so they are frequently bothered by my free use of whatever punctuation.  So, if you are one of these people, I am sorry and I hope it doesn't distract too much from the overall goodness of the writing.
2. I am a great fan of poetry; reading and writing (incorrect usage of semicolon?).  
3. All things in, of, from, and about me are undergoing constant discoveries.  I'm what you might call a "work in progress".  But who isn't?  That's nothing new or unfamiliar to people.  I just thought you should know that I know because only good can come of knowing, you know?
4. I love lists. They help with my utter sense of indecisiveness and work wonderfully to aid my desperate procrastination.  
5. My family is a wonderful bowl of oatmeal.  You'll probably hear a lot about them.  
6. Aaaand I guess you should know that I'm a first year college student.  There is much to say about what this, but at a later time and date.  For introduction purposes, just know that this means I will be tired and on the extremes of emotions (sorrowful, excited, irate, jumping for joy), much like a pregnant woman.  For I am pregnant with the yearning for knowledge and for freedom.  I wonder when that bundle of joy will finally make it's way into my arms...

So, there is a small list of things to start us off with.  A little bit of starter wood for what will soon become a blazing fire of writing madness!!!!!

And with that I prepare to sign off and climb into my cozy sheets and worn out blankets that still smell a little bit like home.  I'm never washing them.
I leave with the greeting I received every morning from my mother as she forced me out of bed and into the world:
"rise and shine! Time to greet the day and be up&about!"