Nice goin' champ

I win all the time. I'm just sayin'. Each of us have our own special talents, and mine is winning. Anyone who knows me knows I like playing games - I used my graduation money to buy games, and I play them whenever I get the chance. AKA whenever I can con my roommates, friends, passing homeless people, weird old creepy Mexicans (NOT) to play with me. And I always win.

Mashed Potatoes and a Thanksgiving full of food,,,

The mashed potatoes were the first to go. Little Bettie hated mashed potatoes and liked the idea of them flying across the table much more than she liked the idea of scraping them off her plate and shoveling them into her mouth. Fling. Before Tommy could reach over to stop his little sister, the mashed potatoes were sailing across the table and... "Plunk!"... right into Mother's hair. Mother didn't know what had hit her when she felt something smash into her scalp. Silence swept through the dinning room. No one dared move a muscle. All eyes shifted from Bettie to Mother and back again. Horror filled faces watched as Mother reached up to feel the massive lump of hair filled mashed potatoes now resting above her right ear.

"Plunk!" Stuffing bounced off Father's nose and it was all over. Food began flying here and there. No one could tell who started in next. Food was everywhere; table, chairs, floor, ceiling, face, legs, toes, mouth, ears. Nothing escaped the Thanksgiving Food Fight of '09. And no memory would forget the moment Mother picked up her fork full of stuffing and bent in back to make the stuffing "Plunk!" against Father's nostrils and bounce clear to Freddy. Every year since then when someone is tired of eating, the fighting ensues. You never know what it's going to be first; butter, gravy, turkey, beats, olives, yams. It could be anything and it could be anyone.

Thanksgiving with a healthy side of Laughter and Fun to wash everything else down.

One Art

For my poetry exam in American Lit, we are doing recitations of poems from our anthology. The poem I chose was one line too short so I chose two. I'm sharing them here... I love them.

One Art: Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I love this one!!! So much! There are so many things in my life that can directly relate to this poem. I've bolded them for significance. Most of you will probably be able to figure out exactly what it all means...

Goodnight, dear void.

I look like a boy... with a really bad haircut.

My hair is awful. Gross. Sick. Bleck. Ugh. Painful. Two butted. Sigh. Awful. Hard on the eyes.
Disappointing. Grumpy face. Awful.
I hate it. Something must be done. And soon. Before I cry myself to sleep every night. Currently it's only every other night and that's been rough enough.
I have brown hair dye in my room. I'm wondering if it's time to whip that out and let it have its way with my hair. I really love the fading Auburn color of my hair now. But the roots are growing in and I think that's part of my hating my hair so much. I've already gotten my hair cut twice in the last few months because I keep hating my hair. And I still hate it. Something must be done! That's it... I'm cutting my bangs this weekend and dying my hair... if that doesn't work, maybe I'll just shave it all off. This nagging voice in my head keeps saying...."if thy leg offend thee...."

On a side note, let me just say:
I have been praying for a good 8 or 9 months that I would learn to be more humble about my exceeding beauty so I could one day get married. Because at that point in my life there probably wasn't going to be a man who thought I was more beautiful or even as beautiful as I did. This current hair situation is most likely in direct response to my prayers. God does answer prayers. Be careful what you pray for, you just might end up with a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad set of hair cuts... I'll probably be married in a fortnight.

Goodnight, dear void.

The Special Two

She'd never know how great a destiny was her's to fulfill. If she had known then she may never have set foot outside her hillside home to adventure out into the world. She had a sack on her back, shoes on her feet, a little money in her pockets, and a hope in her heart. The hope she would speak of to no one. If she did tell them, she feared they wouldn't understand or that they would try to keep her from obtaining her hope, her desire. She left with little idea of where she was headed or what she was to do when she reached her eventual destination. She thought maybe North, maybe East, but definitely not South. South of her home held little future for anyone who ventured within. A barren wasteland of misused opportunities and unfulfilled and discarded dreams. North. She would travel North for some time until she met the river which would take her East to Calisberg. She had a friend who would put her up on his couch for a night or two until she had a better idea of where she should be headed. What a destiny to fulfill. Oh the places she would go without knowing the fate that was leading her, guiding her by the hand to the people she would need to meet and the places she would have to be in order for things to end happily for everyone. She would find out soon enough that her plans and her ideas for her future were nothing compared to the potential they had to be. She was amazing, filled with a power she had no way of understanding. Not then at least. You would consider yourself a lucky person to have had her in your life for even a moment. You would find yourself changed in a way you didn't know was possible. And she would have no idea she had done it, no idea how she'd done it. To her she'd done nothing any differently than she'd done before. To you it would be phenomenal, to her just a passing moment in life. She would change the world if she but allowed herself to do so. North for now. She would head North and see where that took her. Then afterward... she'd figure it out.

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah

I'm starting to take life one day at a time.
Loving and living without end or sway
People, and places, and friends I meet
I'm taking them all in one day at a time.
Some days are sad and filled with tears and pain,
Others are lovely with sunshine unscathed.
I'm learning and growing and smiling all the way.
This isn't making the sense I wish it would.
So I'm leaving you here without finishing the words
that might explain more of what I'm trying to say.
Let's all just take things one day at a time.
Stop causing drama and making things dumb.
One day and one day and time as it comes.
Then maybe we'll all know more about what is to come.

Goodnight, dear void.

Wish upon a Star

What do you do when you don't know what to do?
Everything seems right just as everything seems wrong.
Justified yet unjustified, yes - no, yes - no, yes... no.
What do you do when you don't know what to do?
Is this just a dream? will I ever wake up? can I just scream?
Why did it happen, what can I do, where do I go from here?
What do you do when you don't know what to do?
Get in your car and just drive, drive, drive. Eventually you stop.
Get in your bed and sleep, sleep, sleep. Eventually you wake up.
What do you do when you don't know what to do?
Tears come without invitation or force.
Runny nose flowing and you can't find your voice.
What do you do when you don't know what to do?
Do you think I know?
Ha.

A Mean Poem

I wanted to write a mean poem.
A poem filled with spite.
Something to indite them.
To silently accuse their blight.

Then as I wrote it, memories
came rushing in of times gone
by and pictures of the leaves
in fall; how time changes the fawn.

Friendship has its ups and downs,
I've seen it take its course.
Like laughter to a circus clown,
its fire ignites without remorse.

At times dear friends can hurt you, true;
an act done out of care.
Is it worth the friendship skewed
to condemn a thing so rare?