Hopes for Spring

We've been friends long enough to see eachother age in photos.

So how did it feel when you and batman were in that room together?

You show your id and then pay your three dollars and there's the keys to the castle. It's Thirsty Thursdays and students around here tend to get a bit parched around 9-12 pm. They belly up and order their cranberry and vodkas. Only the best for Mrs. Nixon's baby boys. Last night I saw a girl on some dudes shoulders singing along to a coverband's rendition of a tenacious d song. I was about three minutes from seeing boobs, I could just feel it and for most of the dudes in there it was awesome. Jack and diet, jack and ginger, yuengling. You can guess which was mine. I like to be health conscious and plus I'm pretty sure that I'm addicted to the sweet nectar that is Diet Coke. And whiskey truly is my medicine. Ladies please understand that the weather in the outside bar at bullwinkles is the exact same as the weather outside anywhere else in tallahassee. So if you do the math and it's 39 degrees at your apartment = it's going to be 39 degrees at bulls. Wear a jacket. Your mother is dissapointed in you and there's nothing sexy about hypothermia even if you are wearing a tank top.
No 8:00 classes on fridays. And today thanks to our teacher being absent on Monday... no recitation today. So it's the library and the green and all that comes with college in it's most magnificent form.

Stompin' our feet on wooden boards

Dinner will be ready at 7. I'm making spaghetti and meat sauce. I packed his lunch and kissed him when he left for work telling him that he was going to be late. He'll call around 2 or so to check in. I'll be doing homework or on the walk home. The door will open a little after the meal has gotten cold but it'll taste fine anyway. We'll talk about his day and what's to come. We'll go see a movie at the student life center, come home, set the alarm, and fall asleep watching the daily show or reading. And in all honesty, that's perfection.

Does his company make light of a rainy day.

She looked beatiful when the music started. Very much like a woman in love. It was as if the whole world revolved around the two people walking towards eachother. One foot in front of the other with eyes wide open until the center of the alter was dripping with tears. I watched when they took eachothers hand, when he slid the ring on her finger. I heard her voice shake through her vows and the congregation sing out with joy as they kissed. It had been too long since she had felt this, this lump in the back of her throught as she proclaimed her intentions to love him forever. Love is a dress that you made, and hers was ivory and perfect. I held my breath and before I exhaled, a family was born.

On the street by the beach, or the places we used to go

School has started again and it's time for basketball games and 8 am classes. We're all back to the routine of passing eachother on the green or taking quizzes without properly reviewing the information. It's getting colder outside, finally. I pack my lunches so that I don't have to eat pollo tropical with the rest of the university. A turkey sandwhich with mustard on wheat bread, an apple, a granola bar, a jello cup, and a diet coke. I space it out so that lunch basically takes up three hours of individual delights, each time pulling something new out of that plastic publix bag. I can't say I don't enjoy it. There's something about a packed lunch that reminds me of elementary school when my mom would write a note on a huge paper "K" she had bought just for me. It was before Nancy could even talk (she was so dumb then, couldn't order for herself in a restaurant, couldn't cheer for the noles, you know- real dumb.) and I was the big sister in a three person family. It was Methodist School center with Drew Taylor and Brent Loman and Erin Eppely. Every year we put on a Christmas play and the only one I remember was when we were all birds that were there to welcome the baby Jesus. I was the flamingo. Apparently I had flown all the way from somewhere exotic to witness the birth of the savior. It's amazing the animal instincts on those things. If we were to know eachother then, I'm sure we would be friends. Flamingos are a very affable creatures.

The blend of valor and swagger

It rained for the four days that I was there. One afternoon, one morning, and one weekend. There was something different in this trip, not like an exploration or a journey, more like a try out. So this was San Antonio, and I was there for my interview. We went to the river, walked along as it snaked through down town. We waited underneath bridges or in a restaurant drinking margaritas as the rain came down harder. It looked more like an amusement park than a city. Where was Santa Anna? Where was Jim Bowie? When I was a kid one of my favorite movies was this wonderful world of Disney picture starring Fess Parker as Davey Crockett. It was made in 1955 and featured such heartwarming tales like "Davey Crockett knife fights Cheif Redstick" and "Davey Crockett kills bear with own hands" you know- the kind of stuff a five year old girl just dreams about. I imagine that every man in Texas when asked the question "Who are you?" responds the same: I'm half-horse, half-alligator and a little attached with snapping turtle. I've got the fastest horse, the prettiest sister, the surest rifle and the ugliest dog in Texas. My father can lick any man in Kentucky... and I can lick my father. I can hug a bear too close for comfort and eat any man alive opposed to Andy Jackson. That is the Texas I am looking for. I may not have found it in the miles upon miles of shopping malls or in the coffee shops on every corner. But it's there. And I'm looking forward to meeting it. More to come.

You sir, you are my Johnny Cash

We must have walked through them backwards. In the beginning was the waltz. Just over the bridge with the snowflake lights and the thousand foot drop, before the irish pub next to the dollar store, near all of that were the feet. They were bronze shoe prints with numbers and lines set into the concrete. If you placed your feet on top, and followed the directions, you were dancing. It was the waltz. We stepped into the bronze shoes and started to count. One two three four...... five.... uh.... siiiixxx.. It was twister without the spinner, but neither one of us fell down. We just held a little tighter and looked for seven. A little ways down the sidewalk was the tango. And then we reached the end. The first, our last, was just two feet facing each other. No steps, no numbers, just one left foot across from your partners right foot. One right foot across from his left. It was my favorite. The most alive I've ever felt while dancing.



Chattanooga.

I like my whiskey old and my women young.

We stopped at a rest area to watch the sunrise but it was too cold not to wrap my arms around him. I jumped off the picnic table a couple of times to work off the energy stored up from the traffic and self induced cramped leg space. We watched as the day slipped behind the mountains and the night rose above the city. Tennessee had been blessed with rolling hills and aging red barns anchored by tin silos and grazing cows. Everywhere we passed on the way to Lynchburg looked like a page out of a calendar. Old pick up trucks from the greatest generation rested in pastures and farm equipment that relied on horses dotted the front yards of brick houses. - You take your two fingers of whiskey in one hand like so... your glass of water in the other. You drink the whiskey and throw out the water. Cause ya'll don't need that shit.- We had been to the motherland and seen the spring from which all good things come. There was a pipe that BJ pointed out to me- it read "Spring Water" and led from the cave to the distillary signaling the beginning of the journey- the trek that ended with three ice cubes, splash of diet coke, a plastic cup, and our lips. This was Tennessee and it was beautiful.

The first Noel

It was Christmas day, and we had been awake and out of bed for less than thirty minutes. Sue asked me if I wanted a drink. It was 10:00 in the morning. I declined. She said she had Sam Adams light. I changed my mind. As I said, it was Christmas.
There were kids opening presents and stockings being passed around. Mine had my name in cursive painted on it with gold sparkle fabric paint. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The boys would open a package, tear the wrapping paper, remove the sword with flashing lights and realistic battle sounds out of the box and totally forget that the living room was littered with presents. They were done. They had their swords and readied themselves for combat. There was a baby also, with blond hair and footie pajamas. Actually I think they were all wearing footie pajamas. At first I was positive that the baby was probably dumb. It couldn't talk or add and subtract or order for itself at a restaurant. But he let me hold him and I changed my mind.
We ate cheese and crackers and drank eggnog. It was perfect. BJ's grandma went on to tell me never to fake it with him. It only gave him a false sense of confidence. And she wasn't talking about a smile. There were snow flurries the night before but only the cold remained. Sue played Oh Night Divine on her guitar and the boys watched as she sang. I held the baby on my lap and sipped my sam adams. My boyfriend kissed me on the lips and brushed the hair out of my face.

So this is the new year...

When we got to the cabin it had been almost 14 hours of driving and traffic and ham n' cheese sandwiches and xm radio and windshield wiper blades and confederate flag license plates. It was dark and we had found this tiny wooden house by sheer luck. No cell phones, no directions, no address, just Charlie's very capable instructions, which as time passed we slowly lost hope in. But down the drive way next to the sign and two mailboxes, it was right where he said it would be. A tiny one bedroom cabin with a fireplace, eat in kitchen, and fixture above the southwestern ranch style bed appropriately labeled "mood lighting". Sue had left a basket on the table with a hand written note and a bottle of wine. On the label there was a picture of a knight on his stead taking the hand of a fair maiden. The note read something like, enjoy the hot tub. She stopped short of leaving a copy of "What to expect when you're expecting" or a wedding magazine with pages already earmarked. I wouldn't put it past her. It was the bottle of wine that put it over the edge, it may have been called moonlight encounter, I still have the bottle somewhere. But we had arrived and the welcome was perfect. Quiet. Pure unadulterated peace. Noel Noel. And the angels sang. It was Christmas eve and the temperature was dropping outside. It all seemed the beginning of something new rather than the end of another year. 2006 was coming to a close and yet I didn't feel any different. I made no resolution, no cry of regret. BJ and I talked about goals we have. He wants to learn to pick locks, I want to run a marathon. I want to go to Vermont again. I had a dream last night that Kansas and Erin met us there because it was someone's wedding. Then Kansas told me about pickled peanuts that burned people's mouths off and would BJ like to go have some in Alabama some time? What dreams may come. We'll be ready. But no pickled peanuts for me.

Sherman's march to the sea