honeybun

My aunt, my aunt, my tiny little dark-haired aunt. Her small shoulders held up high. I remember she told me years ago, her time is the middle of the night. Or it used to be. When everything is quiet and she can have a snack. And here I am, 36 years old--my time is the middle of the night, when everything is quiet and I can have a snack.

Some other things I love about my aunt include how she taught me to remember my social security number with a pneumonic device or how she always gets the name of every waitress or how she snorts when she laughs. She calls me honeybun and I call everyone else honeybun. I remember all the schemes I've been party to thanks to my aunt. Like the Christmas we all met up at The Mall of America. Or the holiday in San Diego. For whatever reason we arrived first, had one night of just us. We loafed on, I think, a mattress on the floor, gabbing our heads off. I didn't want it to end. I never want it to end. We stood looking out over the ocean with my cousin a few springs ago. She held out her hands to the sunset, okay now everything just...slow down, she said. I understood exactly what she meant. I too wanted the minute to be captured like a diorama I could live in.

It was so sweet she came to my college to see me as the lead in the musical. It couldn't have been an easy trek with my grandfather, but she did it, and we all ate ice cream together in the campus guest house. She helped me book plane tickets when I had a layover from my study abroad and she did my taxes for years. I was always eager to have her on my Pictionary team and thought it was adorable how she adopted Facebook earlier than most Boomers. She made a habit of sending me emoji hearts. My sister once asked her how often she used the website. She said, if you two post something there is a one-hundred percent chance I see it. She watched all the episodes of the TV show I worked on and even flew to LA to attend a taping with her lifelong bff. We went to a sound bath and a diner and had lunch on a Hollywood pool deck.

What a model of girlhood, to have not just one, but a pack of lifelong bffs. I spent a long weekend with her in a bungalow. I studied for finals at the table outside and we took a drive to a manmade lake. On our way home from dinner one night she started singing the Flintstones theme song. I can see it now, the way she bobs her head around when she's having fun. I'm told when she was a child she made a protest sign in support of the Black Panther movement. A couple years ago she made a joke to me about a disgraced celebrity. I said I didn't think it was funny, and instead of rolling her eyes she really sat with that then said, you know I never thought about it that way.

One time we lounged for hours in a coffee shop and she told me everything she was excited about in college. A thing she did decades after it might be traditional. She got her degree online, computing from the basement of her lovely nature-soaked home. She had dreams of ending welfare systems, and I take on these dreams as my own. She organized a women's march in her small neck of the literal woods and volunteers on behalf of animals. She's invested in the Native people surrounding her and often up for an adventure. She sent me a photo recently, she and her boyfriend snowmobiling. She sends me adorable photos of her granddaughter too. We don't see each other often, but we are in an important club together, as are all people who adore the same person.

When I was seven and afraid of her gruff husband she tried to explain Vietnam to me. When he passed away we visited her. I was making a pb and j and she gasped. She took the jar away, it was his last, it was his last. I recalled this years later and she laughed, sorry about that. But I wasn't sorry. I was glad to see someone going a bit nuts over something that seemed nuts-worthy. I've had a couple dreams about the man over the years, and I always let her know. Once their song was playing on the radio as I texted. It was playing in a gift shop last week. I thought of them.

It's cool she's always been up to crafty things. Like glassblowing or beading. A true artist, it's about the journey not the destination. Some other time she was staying in an Arizonan hotel. I drove my scooter over to have the continental breakfast with her. She made up a little English muffin with cream cheese and walnuts. She waxed on about the bad men who'd been in her life, and how she mommed through it. At one point she started crying. Why am I making myself sad? she suddenly asked. She also told me she'd really enjoyed the new Jackass movie, and, inspired by a recent watch, took a flying leap onto her own bed.

I still wish to do an improv show up there some summer. It might not ever happen, but I think about it every year. She said, oh I'd love that, mostly because I'd be cheesin' all over town about my niece. Everybody likes her, except the people who don't. She has wisdom about that too. How once a client was mean and rude and no matter what she couldn't win him. How to this day that ornery guy serves as a reminder that some people will just never dig us and that's fine.

Couldn't have been easy to watch her brother lose his mind and another lose his ties to the family. But she was beside them both when they passed from this earth. Just as she was with her father and mother. If I had to describe my aunt briefly I couldn't do justice, but I think the word "brave" would be in there.

I didn't much know her aunt R, but she made a point to tell me, that's who taught her "to aunt." So I guess I do know R, don't I? Just like most people who know me know my aunt--even if they don't know it.

Last I saw her was for an Italian lunch. There was surprise ham on my pizza and she was upset on my behalf. She looked at my puffy white coat and said in her next life she might dress a little fancier. We remembered how my college boyfriend's dad had been in an internment camp and didn't like to talk about it but did tell my aunt the first time they met, over breakfast. We laughed so much and I don't know what about. Something about vowing never to return to the Orlando airport then deciding she didn't actually care about it that much. There is an urgency when we're in person, like there's a full bottle of magic--only we may not have enough time to uncork and guzzle it all.

She told me she remembers trying to swim across the lake together. We didn't end up doing it, but I think it's really special we set out at all. I was little, but I recall splashing near her, the dock getting smaller and smaller behind us. And other times I feel like I'm on that dock, watching us go. The child and her aunt are the ones getting smaller and smaller. 

fall 2023

Christmas Eve for Sickos

Filled an empty See's box with grocery store gift cards for the neighborhood baristas. Puhg and I did the NYT puzzles as a gal yapped loudly next to us, a realtor who spoke rudely about her renters and their pipes. Read some of Women Who Run with the Wolves and jotted ideas for an essay about destroying capitalism. Finished the episode of Station 11 I fell asleep during. Got excited for my next play workshop, realized it would be the same exact date a previous workshop (defunded) fell apart.

I really wanted to enter the holiday without deadlines, so I wrote my Megacorp x Megacorp commercial from 4 - 6 PM. The sun served as my ticking clock. Sent the script away, ah. Put on my coat, stuffed my purse with candy, and hoofed into the night. It was very special club of us, everyone who went to the Vista on Christmas Eve to see a 3.5 hour historical drama about immigration and architecture. In line for popcorn I smiled and waved at a guy, then asked, wait--how do we know each other? Turns out he works at one of my haunts, we'd just never spoken. "Hi, sicko," Puhg said. And then we saw Jack Black, in bright pink shorts, walk by. Later, a guy who lost Survivor.

Right before the movie began my dad called, so I went outside to talk with him while the previews rolled. I stood in the alley with my hood over my eyes. There was an intermission, which felt so cute and quaint. The entire place was abuzz with folks running into each other and refilling their pop. Everyone liked the movie, you could just tell. Applause etc. We decided to wait for the credits to end before braving the chilly California night. The streets were truly empty. We trotted the mile home, jaywalking for fun and spinning under the hung lights. We talked about art and if the journey is actually greater than the destination. Maybe the destination gives weight to the journey--has anyone ever considered that?

At the last stoplight (red and green) Puhg opened his phone to the ham cam app. She had just gotten up, was drinking water. We tore down the sidewalk, bursting in the door in time to grab her. "Christmas ham!" we cheered at her. And she blinked--because hamsters don't know about holidays, but I like to think they can sense them, in their tiny hamster hearts.

Christmas Tree Farm

I never realize how intensely LA has taken over my brain until I leave for long enough.

The Midwest is such a jovial schlubby little hamlet. I love how people rib each other about everything. On Christmas Eve Eve I approach one of Puhg's uncles. He's in a recliner in the middle of the room, children bouncing all around, cookies being consumed at lightening speed. I ask him, "Do you know where our suitcases ended up?" He says, "Yes," and then pauses for a long time--before a mischievous little grin creeps across his face! The next morning I feel guilty I don't want the cheesy potatoes and ditch everyone for a fancy latte. I sip it, trotting through the suburban forest.

All I want for Christmas is to have dinner at my favorite high school pizza spot. My sister and mom indulge my request. The meal is not overrated, a teenage dream, and probably $30 for the three of us! We go to the fancy grocery to buy "snacks" to watch the filmed Waitress musical. Pookie sneaks an entire cake into the theatre. There are walks to the river and gingerbread folk to decorate, living room couches piled with wrapping junk and old ornaments to tap. A Santa garland from my childhood on the banister going up the stairs.

In farmland my dad always knows someone. In the grocery store parking lot, at the coffee shop where I toil over my final deadline of 2023, at the lodge, near the fireplace. I sit there journaling about my next play, into the night, wool socks on.Two ladies with crooked teeth greet me at the resale shop on main street. (Or, "a" main street.) They ask where I'm from and then frown. "I would not like living in a big city!" they assure me. People aren't shy about their preconceived notions where French names are butchered. We sit in the bakery, we sit at Cracker Barrel, we sit at Baskin Robbins, we sit at lunch I think at the very same table we had to evacuate during a tornado in 2017. The winter is more than mild but I have to wear my gloves.

On Christmas Eve there are coolers on the porch and only dips with meat and all eight adult siblings peer into the Fannie May box, detectives on the hunt for caramel. God help who gets the lemon creme. The teen girls always find me. One a class president who shows me her collection of homemade cards, the other a crackly drama queen who tells me about torturing the boy she likes. She has 18K TikTok followers for making Hunger Games edits.

The bathroom is marble and the fireplace is fake. We walk around the Macy's windows. No bustle at all, just pods of unhoused families. The plane is full, and everyone working at the airport is miserable.

Simply Having

Frothy ocean, reading poolside, lime juice in the hot tub, chatting with a window, pastry pile every morning, Christmas Eve nachos and then Christmas nachos, humid salt air, smoke in the palm forest, beach massage, Diet Cokes on the patio, dumb little holiday tree, sunglasses gone, tips counted, bright stars, sandcastle lump, iguanas and hawks, biking around the bend, red lipstick, time moving on.

Post-Crying in the Writing Center

I grumpily helped some students with commas. At home Puhg saw I was in a mood, so while he was swiffering the kitchen, he impersonated Winston Churchill with a little cane. He made me kale power bowls for dinner, and when I hopped out to the store for a lime, I came back with my extra treats. Puhg glanced in the shopping back, so I said, "Don't @ me." (The Santa's Favorite that taste like licorice!!) We watched Survivor! I worked on revisions for my solo show for half an hour before grabbing a cab to coach an improv rehearsal. I made a cool $45 (sunglasses emoji). I felt scared about opening night--3.5 weeks away. I ate fifteen cookies before bed. Final grades have been submitted. My backpack is full of popcorn and candy for a Star Wars viewing in 54 minutes.

Jigsaw Holiday

8:30 AM Spin class. Amy Grant's Christmas album. Watching the Amy's episode of Kitchen Nightmares. Drinking grape juice from a bougie tumbler. Being genuinely excited about my new egg cooker. The annual money tree. The cutest vegan roast. A rousing game of Secret Hitler. Ho ho ho. Stuffed in a car with dogs. Mom's homemade fudge. Serious discussion about Survivor: Gen X vs. Millennials. Moving around gift puddles. And then there were two, with one cookie candle.

Oh "Merry Christmas"

I really don't mind "Merry Christmas." I know I celebrate Christmas, so, obviously I have a comfortability bias. But, I guess I think Christmas is a national holiday. Our nation, for better or for worse, was founded in Christianity. It's American culture to say "Merry Christmas" around December 25th.

"Merry Christmas" is not (and should not be) mandated American culture by any means. People who are offended by "Happy Holidays" can choke on a candy cane. Who honestly cares? Your holiday/beliefs/religion are not tainted when someone different than you does not choose to reflect a casual intended-to-be-cheerful sentiment. But, why not say "Merry Christmas" if that's what I choose to celebrate? "Celebrate" is even a loose term. I watched Scrooged and had an apple pie, ya know? I have no plans to view a baby Jesus tomorrow.

I would not be offended if someone chose to wish me a holiday greeting of their choice (any time of year, not just in winter). I'd be totally a million percent happy to hear "Happy Purim!" from Jewish friends (or strangers). One of my students last term asked for Eid off this fall, and I enjoyed learning about it. For sure, she could write the in-class essay remotely.

But, I suppose I know that being a non-white non-Christian person in America is inherently difficult at times. Perhaps casual reminders that the majority of your culture believes something you don't is suffocating. I check my privilege here. I get it. I think I'm dreaming of the world I wish we lived in--where people would all openly say what they believe and how they choose to do so and we're all in awe of each other and how unique we all are...not the world we live in where people don't want to wish anyone a pleasant Ramadan because someone may want to kill them in response.

Sugar Cookie Pop-Tart

Sugar Cookie Pop-Tarts do, in fact, taste like sugar cookies. Beside the more cracker-like Tart texture vs. the chewiness of a traditional cookie, they are the same. The frosting is lackluster and plain, decorated with stupid pictures like a skiing snowman. The inside, especially when heated, is delightful. Borderline majestic. That right-out-of-the-oven-at-Christmas game, mang.

I ate two of the box of 16. On an afternoon in December. Ro ate 13, as they were good "just woke up from a nap" snacks. And in January she took a lot of naps. She left one solitary Tart in the box, stale and lonely. A gesture of "See? I didn't eat all your food."

Taste is A. But I will not be buying these again. They're just too darn close to full-blown dessert, you might as well just go for legit cookies if that's what you're in the mood for.

He Was Somethin'

"It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come."--Dalai Lama

Beloved.

Ashley Simpson

ME: Ate two cookies for dinner. Boop.
BISQUE: That's how I know it's still you.

Sugar cookie versions of us.

Oh, it's as if you know me better than I ever knew myself.

BH

Cookies 'n' cocoa.

Ghost of Christmas Past: Let's face it, Frank. Garden slugs got more out of life than you.

Frank: Yeah? Name one.

Grinch's Log: Entry #0007

Shells' gift. Filled with pb.

The days are long and full of sugar, artificial heat. Stir crazy is setting in. 7th day in my sister's tiny apartment. First mate Char keeping up the morale, but also falling asleep pretty regularly. Henchman Pookie on KP--washing dishes with lightening speed from the multiple entrees of pie and mallomars I am consuming at breakneck pace.

Journeyed to a local cinema to see a buffalo nickel movie yesterday. Ironically, we chose Argo, you know, the one about the hostages. Hitting too close to home. In other news, still hating the cold, snow, being indoors, having to drive everywhere, and, of course, Christmas in general.

Waiting for heart growth steroids. Worried will not arrive based on holiday parcel traffic. Fear for my henchman and first mate. Their souls are subject to my bitter seasonal rage, anxiety, and moodiness. Over and out.

Heresick

Tomorrow I fly back to the Midwest for holidaze. I am looking forward to seeing my family, but I do not want to leave.

I love Arizona: pink skies, cacti, mountains, boys outside the Circle K glugging plastic gallons of water, My Friends, Sunday improv in the design building, Tuesday improv on the library lawn, students who say "I'm not just saying this--," the click of my bedroom door closing, my cushy bed, fresco bean burritos, the stone bus stop, the rainbowed aisles of Mexican soda, my poster of Peeta. When I have to leave here, I feel sick and sad like it's the last night of summer camp.

Some people will never experience certain kinds of love in their lives. I will probably never "get" that hardcore sportsfan-die-hard-my-blood-runs (insert color). I can't imagine what it's like to be an only child and have that sibling connection missing from your experience. The first time romance is a true possibility something is exposed to you, from you. And me? I love the place I live so fiercely, that it pains me to take a vacation.

Ironically, this is not AZ. This is Disney's version of AZ in Cars Land. Hill and me this weekend.

So I went to Arizona to escape my blues.
That paradise bird sang and my life was never ever the same.
Arizona, Arizona you were good to me.

It's a Small, Small, World

"You'll remember that so much more than the grading you should have been doing."--Heart, after I told him I went to Disneyland in the middle of finals.

Two weeks ago Hill texted me, "But what if you went to Disneyland next Friday?" and although a teeny part of my brain chirped "Please do not do that" I could not stop my fingers from racing "YES YES YES" because it's Disneyland at Christmas.

Disneyland is corporate America at it's best, over-priced, sentimental, and subtly racist at every turn, but guess WHAT? I love it. I had The Most Fun. It was exceedingly refreshing to spend a few days with people I don't know very well, and as cliche as it sounds, Disney makes me happy. It's overpriced because there is magic to be made--or at least synthesized. I am in debt to that magic. Schoolwork and logistics don't seem important on Space Mountain. There are no personal offenses to consider in the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion.

The group right after It's a Small World lit on up.

At about 6 PM I started feeling ill. At 7:30 I was vomiting my guts out. Goodbye burrito from Downtown Disney. Farewell, Dole whip. Sayonara, bread bowl from California Adventure. I really wanted to push through and finish out the night, but I just couldn't. I needed to be thankful for the good I had already received. Jungle Cruise and Indy and Cars, oh my. I stoically bid everyone goodnight and walked, shaking, back to the hotel alone. I counted blessings in the dark on my pull-out until I fell asleep. In an hour I was awoken by fireworks, and everything was perfect and beautiful. Stomach still, head relieved. I kicked on my shoes in joy and ran to the balcony! The sky show was not only fantastic kiddy excitement with mouse ears, it was a celebration of my well-being. I jogged back to the park, where everyone was spilling out with throbbing feet. I was not phased by the hoards of tired tourists shoving on the faux main street of yesteryear. I was in love with everyone--I had my health.

I walked to up to this group of friends I only kind of know nursing aching backs in Tomorrowland, and they cheered for me. "You rallied!" said Spiff. We took a ride with C-3PO. All were exhausted and ready to call it at 11:15. I could not! Too much glee. I told them to leave, but I was going on Peter Pan. Reluctantly, one by one, they all joined me in line. The perfect end to a perfect day--flying over London, fighting pirates, think happy thoughts.

Photo by Hill.

Think happy thoughts.

Why I Love My iPad Even Though I Thought They Were Stupid at First

WARNING: If you don't care about iPads, this post is not interesting!

"I can't believe you have an iPad...it's just so mainstream consumerist of you!:)"--E-mail from Dunt, October 10th, 6:53 PM in response to my "Sent from my iPad" sign-off

She's not wrong. I myself thought iPads were flat-out dumb when they first came out. "So, it's a computer...but worse that's 'easier to hold'?" I was not impressed. But, then, something big happened in my life: I started grad school. More specifically: I started biking a couple miles to grad school every day. In college I almost never brought my computer to class. I like to take notes by hand, and I like to be present (not on Facebook, which, as a TA in giant lecture classes, I am hugely aware is actually what every undergrad student is actually minoring in). But, in grad school, I need my computer. Like...all the time. Lots of PDFs for classes, peer plays I have to  read, student e-mails that flood my school inbox like stoner freshmen at the 24-hour Taco Bell.

Carrying my computer on my back to school every day was heavy, sure, but it was also scary. I haven't fallen off my bike once since I moved here (which is actually pretty dang amazing considering it's my main form of transportation and I'm not, like, the most graceful person in the Milky Way Galaxy), but I could any day. I could wobble and lose my bearings and fall onto the sidewalk...and my backpack could drop off my shoulders...right under a car tire. Crunch. Buh-bye, MacBook. The idea concerned me. If I lost my computer, it would be a nightmare for me to continue with school. I'd have the library computers--often crowded and questionable working environment...and that'd be it. MAYBE I could do SOME research (if I needed to) on my phone. As long as I was researching, like, Twitter and Instagram.

Anyway, I recognized last year I needed to start protecting my computer more. It should stay at home as often as humanly possible...I needed something else to allow me to read scripts from for playwrights' workshop, something that would allow me easy access to the internet, I grimaced and recognized I am the perfect candidate for an iPad.

My whole family pooled together to give it me for Christmas.I didn't even open the dang box for weeks. I wasn't excited about the toy. I hate electronics. On the first day of school, I sliced open the plastic wrap. And then I downloaded all my textbooks into the Kindle app. And then I biked to school NOT hunched over, NOT fearing for my computer's life. I biked to school with a tiny little screen in my backpack, a notebook, and that's IT. Cue "Freedom 90" by George Michael.

Here's What Else I Love about My iPad:

1. E-books are easy to buy (no trip to the store--handy if you don't have a car).

2. They are also supes eco-friendly.

3. I watch Netflix while running on the treadmill at the gym. This is amazing. I knock out my "relax veg out" time and work-out time at the same time.

4. I prop it up in the kitchen and easily read recipes off of it.

5. I prop it up like a boombox anywhere I go and play Pandora on it.

6. When it's slow at work, I am able to get up and help students much quicker with an iPad on my lap than a computer on my lap.

7.  Okay. This is a bit ridiculous...but whatever, I do it: I set up my laptop and my iPad side by side in my bedroom and watch One Tree Hill on my iPad while simultaneously doing Jillian work-out DVDs on my computer. I have the power, I might as well wield it!

8. I can walk around my condo and FaceTime.

This summer, I wasn't in school, and I didn't touch the dang pad for three months. But, now, it's again the love of my life. No, really, I spent more time with my iPad than any human. HAHAHA IT'S FINE JUST DYING ALONE WHATEVER.

Perks of Being a Wallflower

Read it when I was 15 in one sitting cozied into a chair at my grandparents' on Christmas. I learned a lot from that book. It got to me at the right time.

I saw it on Sunday night with Chelle. I didn't expect to love it, but I really did. The film definitely did justice to the original story, and it made me reflect just like the pages do, and it made me appreciate teen years just like I was reminded to do that bitter December years and years ago.

Today during our break from playwright's workshop, Boulder and I wandered out of our classroom and into the hall where the lockers for acting students are. Cobra saw us and said, "You guys look like you're in high school." We assessed our locker-leaning and realized we did. We improvised a short scene in which we were hiding cigarettes and dishing about letterman jackets.

Something I'm Grateful About: I sincerely loved my high school experience. In hindsight, yes (nostalgia!) but also at the time. I had some rough patches, but I was super into the whole shebang--the frenzy of classes, the passing notes, the crushes, the plays, the busrides to tournaments, the proms. I realized on Sunday that some people will watch Perks and feel like they're on a voyage to a memory they never lived. But I have those memories for real, which is something to be grateful for.

High School speech tournament my junior year. I don't talk to any of these people, but they were important to me at the time.

Are You Still There?

Today. Chicago Theatre.

My kind of town Chicago is not.
There's a grit here--the Buicks with bullet holes,
the frigid whip along Lakeshore Drive.
I visited Fran in the suburbs.
We took a walk around her upper middle class neighborhood.
One single streetlight, no sidewalks.
It was night before I knew it--
it bit, it bit.
This afternoon I crossed the holiday Fields' windows,
and Bennigans'. I can't be sure, but I think those are the windows
I sat on the other side--the inside--of one winter,
with my mom and other adults while our waiter beat the glass
because a homeless man was up against it, pointing
to his mouth.
Felt so low, felt so low.
My mom packed up my potato skins in a to-go box
and said we'd give them to the bum if he was still out there when we left.
He wasn't.
I think about him.
There's a grit here--in the huge blue snowflake of Southwest Ice Arena,
in the combo BR/DD 24/7, in the large black woman with the hot red lipstick and bluetooth on the bus, she says, "I just have to decide the best thing to do and then do it the best I can."

True Meaning of Christmas

This morning I was sitting in church, and I was thinking about The True Meaning of Christmas. I think Jesus was a real neat dude. I know, I know, there's a good chance you probably don't believe he existed, and my theory is I don't really care. I like the guy--fiction or non, and I think we could learn a lot from his* lessons.

But I really don't think Christmas means Jesus to me. A. He probably wasn't really born December 25th. B. We should think about being good people all year (what I think Jesus symbolizes--or should). I don't love Christmas. I really don't. I like the build-up--like the songs and color schemes, but I find it a lame, sluggish, stressful, consumerist holiday BAGGGGH. I KNOW I RUIN EVERYTHING. Still, if I celebrate it, it should mean something. And, I think it does, but I don't know what exactly. Maybe family, I think. Something about it. Something about good cheer. I do believe in that. Peace--yes, I think peace is part of it. Bill Murray's Scrooged, stars, cute depictions of manger scenes, cookies, cartoon trees, George Bailey. I'm very very blessed to have my family.

I was icky sick on the drive from Pookie's to my dad's, so they drove. I sat in the front seat while my dad drove ahead in my car. After a while my sister's phone rang--"Checking on the Pookie," he said. My sister rubbed my neck.

Yesterday night I got to my mom's apartment in the city. "Voila!" she said. I had forgotten I had sent her a recipe for pumpkin cheesecake I found online. SHE HAD MADE IT. A great surprise.


Baker's Square French Silk.

*Purposeful non-capitalization.

Currently Braindead

Cake! 12.2011.

Happy Eve Eve.

Children carry through the streets
a brightly painted star.
Angels gather round the hearth,
strumming on guitars.
Men of great renown and faith
say prayers on boulevards.

Driving Pride

Did I tell you guys I won some comedy awards this semester? Not like legit awards, but dinko group awards like "Audience Choice" for my improv team and "MVP" for sketch. Also, did you know I got an "A" on my Theatre History final paper and presentation and a perfect score on my final Dramaturgy paper--you know, the one graded by my dramaturg professor who's background in 15 years of dramaturgy at Yale?

Well, I have some things to be proud of after my first semester of grad school. But, honestly, I am most proud of the fact that I drove from AZ to my sister's Midwest home in two days. This is huge. I hate driving. A lot. And, yet, I managed the trip in two twelve hour chunks. My dad was my accomplice and only drove for a few hours this morning. We stopped minimally. We spent one night at a Motel 6. I am here in my sister's nook house, and she will carry us the rest of the way to Chicago for Christmas.

How I Sustained Myself (A Food Log of Yesterday and Today):
1 chocolate chip bagel with strawberry cream cheese
1 granny smith apple
1 6-inch veggie egg Subway sub
2 24 ounce Circle K pumpkin spice lattes
2 gas station microwavable bean burritos
4 guacamole flavored chips

I know some people can drive forever (Truckers what? How do they do it?) and they don't think they deserve a medal or anything, but, you know, I think it's okay to celebrate overcoming our downfalls--even if our downfalls really shouldn't be downfalls.