Ten Things about Spring Break 2013

-Running downtown in my pink sportsbra and pink shorts and pink Nikes and The Resistance on repeat.
-Bisque singing "Gangnam Style" at me while I procrastinated jumping in my pool . It was frigid, Monday at 10 PM, but we wanted to have a handstand competition.
-Texting The Craft quotes with Ro. 90s Neve!
-Last Five Years and Into the Woods harmonies with Ru in my sunny bedroom. Don't we get to be happy, Cathy?
-Phone date with Kath. Necessary.
-Actually getting a lot of writing done and not hating it, not even a little.
-Figuring things out! Figuring them out!
-Irish soda bread.
-Scene is Tuesday's improv set about a family with genetic brain farts.
-Deep cleaning the bathroom.

Best Sandwich Ever

Slab of mozzarella, laced with leaves.

Ciabatta as good--no--better

than the ones Kay's dad brought home from the bakery in Monterey.

We ate them on the couch while watching 12 Angry Men.

Buttery. Flakey. Thick.

I didn't think I could taste bread so good

and yesterday revisited that disbelief.

Hill said, "I will take you to the best sandwich ever,"

and it was not even a lie. Not even a little bit.

The semi-circle was hand-sized, comfortable,

and although the stories my friend told me were not pleasant,

there is something pleasant about it--

holding that cradle of tomato over brown butcher paper.

Life might be unfair, but it is just--

because we are walking justice.

Our positivity is the criminal system,

and if you refuse to be locked up,

you can't be.

Let them try.

You might bite down so hard your braces brackets break,

but still,

let them try.

In the end,

you might be at a picnic table

filling up on a champion lunch

and spinning your straw

in fresh whipped cream.

News for Yous

Veg corn dog. Provided by Muff & Jamba.

-Being a vegan this month.
-I want a white Patagonia fleece. I don't want things often, but I have it saved as a favorite on my iPad. Give me that fleece. There's something about it. Something about a glorified $120 sweater that I KNOW I will ruin within five minutes of owning it by leaving a Snickers in the pocket on a sunny day or something.
-Free things today: going to a free recital for Ru tonight, a free quinoa dumpling for lunch, standing in the sun outside of class with Boulder and Rye--chatting, laughing. All FREE. Also free--all the baked goods set on pretty tables on the balcony of the music building post-recital. But guess who didn't eat any in order to be ethical? THIS GIRL. Pats on backs.

Everybody wants to live
how they want to live,
and everybody wants to love
who they want to love,
and everybody wants to be
closer to free.

Be Comforted

Cozy couple in PJS in VA.

Comfort. Capital C, sunny days on bicycles, chocolate cookies at the grad student picnic with Hill, trotting up to our favorite professor's door, being invited in for sits and thoughts.

The Comfort of the subpar but all-you-can-eat chocolate froyo and brownie squares at Sweet Tomatoes. "I want to be fat," I told Smirn. The Comfort of my home here. How it feels to punch in the code on our garage, taking an envelope out of my stationary drawer, knowing there is one pine cone stamp left for this letter Michigan-bound. The people I've met, and how they've turned into the people I can insult, or hug, and how it feels just right.

"You will begin to understand that healing is an effect. It's no longer the object of your intention. It becomes the unavoidable side effect."--Michael Pabst

Denver Wedding

Murried.

Berger and I finished Adventureland last night
right before it was bedtime. Early bedtime. He had to drive me to the airport at 5 AM today.
I tied my shoes silently in the foyer.
"I made you breakfast," he said, handing me a granola bar and my soup dish of two cupcakes:
cranberry almond and orange chocolate chip mocha.

They were the wedding cake. I gave them as an offering to Chelle when she picked me up from the airport back in sunny AZ.
Oh,
I missed sunny AZ
when the entire 94 guests shuffled outside the mansion
to take a friendly group photo.
"Here's who's here to celebrate this lovely thing!"
we waved up at the camera.

KWall suggested Adventureland to me a few months ago.
Finally, the first day of her honeymoon, I watched it.
I loved it a lot.
I loved the love.
I loved the love all weekend.

I gave the readings for the special day, a mid-morning ceremony.
I read in a dress patterned with greyhound-shaped zebras.
A caterer asked if I made it.
Hmm. Don't think that's a compliment. When the caterer asks if you made your formal outfit.


Kath--the best Thanksgiving guest.

"I really loved it," I told Berger. I folded the blanket and patted it onto his sofa.
"Do you feel like you changed?" he asked, which is a good post-film question.
"Yes. I feel like you should do things that are good for you, and that you should be happy."

My friend KWall has a new name. My first memory of our friendship was a decade ago on a beach walk. We talked about the TV show Blossom. She was dating her college sweetheart back then. She broke his heart.
Games, games, games.

After A While, Crocodile

Cast of Spelling Bee--an "in character" shot.

At the end of strike, we stood in a clump watching some tech guys dismantle the bleachers we sat on for hours every night for the past two months. It was time to go, and we each took turns hugging each other. Goodbyes are not as difficult after Sunday matinees. You know you are about to go home, have dinner with family, drive in the sunshine. It's much harder in the night. Alone.

As I left the theatre for the last time, I did know just how final everything was. I am moving across the country soon. I have no family and dwindling friends in St. Louis--barely a reason to return, let alone be in the area enough to bump into anyone I met on this show. I liked everyone, but I didn't truly become close with anyone. And, I don't have a Facebook. I will really probably never see these people again.

Schwartzy's car was parked near mine. We laughed and razzed even as we were walking farther and farther away from each other. I saw her small in the distance, and she was still yelling, "You know what, Alice?!" and I was laughing. She opened her Jeep door, waved, and then, "Hey," she said. "Hey. I hope we do meet each other again. If only so I can prove to you I am just a little bit more successful."

I crumpled into my car, chuckling, putting on my sunglasses. I did not know the void of nothingness could be so bright. "So longs" happen at Chuck-E-Cheeses and open mic nights--not just prison and graduations.


Girl talk with LC and Muff in my bed this week made me feel like college never ends.

When I had driven Muff to the airport just a few hours before the final curtain call, I said, "It's all good because we will definitely see each other again. Unless one of us dies first." As if there's an alternative to those options.

Goodbye, you were good but not good enough.
So please don't ask why. Simply say, "Goodbye!"