Question for You:

What does snot smell like?

Best February Ever

February is always the time when it won't snow, and the snow won't melt. It feels like winter will never end, and the cold wind will never stop blowing. It's the month to crave watermelon, lemonade, and corn on the cob. It's midterm season. The nights still start early. The mornings start early too. Earlier than I get up...

Maybe that's why this February seems different from the rest. Maybe it's because I'm out on my own. Maybe it's because this year midterms actually mean that the semester's half over. Maybe it's because I am actually in a relationship. Maybe it's because I'm in a relationship that is mutual and both of us are happy where we are. Maybe it's because I'm living on my own.

Regardless, I've got a bucket of chocolate next to me, a new teddy bear to cuddle, and it's not unbearably hot in my apartment.

Quite honestly, I'm glad my boyfriend lives two hours away. It makes the time we have together special. And that time together is usually on the weekends when i refuse to study. which means our time is both special AND unstressed!

my boy can read my mind. If i didn't like it so much it would almost be scary.
my boy makes me laugh. which is a far cry from what the last few could do.
my boy speaks fluently to my father.
my boy will let me bite him.
my boy knows what really matters and will put that first.
my boy loves me for who i am, and doesn't ask for anything else.

thank you scott. thanks for everything.

Glassy. Just Glassy.

I went home this weekend. Therefore, I was not at my apartment for two days.

Within this time, some idiot dropped a bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider directly in front of my door. It shattered, like dropped glass often does, and he just left it. (I say "he" not because of the propensity for men to be clumsy slobs, but because most of the people on my floor are guys) By the time I saw it all the liquid had evaporated, an impressive feat given that our current temp is 21 degrees. Anyway. There was just a buttload of thick, green, shattered glass sitting in front my door the entire weekend. And no one bothered to clean it up.

Until I did.

I picked up the big pieces AND recycled them, and then I went to talk to my R.A. about a dustpan and broom. He told me not to worry about it, he'd get the officials to clean it up.


Yesterday morning someone was out there sweeping... it must have been an official's job cuz there's still green glass out there, glued to the cement with sticky apple cider residue. Another official job well done. Yeesh. Disclaimer: DO NOT GO BAREFOOT IN MY BEDROOM. GLASS SHARDS IN YOUR FEET PROBABLE.

Anyway. That's not my only glass incident. Last night I was closing my window, when the adjacent window (broken, not by me) attacked me! All I did was lean up against it when its naked frame bit me! I was left with what I thought was a little gash... I watched the blood flow slowly down my wrist... the blood wasn't warm. You know how everybody talks about warm, sticky blood flowing out of their wound? I've decided that that proverbial wound must be huge to keep the blood warm enough. But I digress.

I thought it was a gash. But as I started playing with it (because I'm masochistic and macabre and morbid (and alliterative)) I realized that there was something inside it. I squeezed it (like popping a pimple) and a shard of glass half emerged from my thumb.

My poor roommate. I made her grab her tweezers and pull it out -- after which the blood really started to flow, but I couldn't tell whether or not it was warm, she'd turned on the cold water and made me wash it.

Turns out that water+blood+wrist shaking=cool designs and patterns in the sink.

My RA was studying with my other roommate the entire time and stupidly asked me while I was bleeding through my second bandaid, "Oh by the way, did they ever fix your window?"

Uh, NO. They didn't. Thanks for caring.

But now I'm worried about tetanus, because that window frame was both rusty and had flaking lead paint.

I'm so glad I pay so much to live in substandard housing.
If I get sick can I sue the school and get them to pay for housing for the next three years? Maybe I won't go get a tetanus booster, because that'd be great!

let's not assume the worst, shall we?

It's funny how not-so-interesting experiences can really make one think. It was a pretty mundane, common-place thing that happened to me the other day and I don't know why it stuck with me, but it did.

I was walking into the public library and passed a teenage couple walking out. They'd have caught anyone's eye, as they were both covered in fairly typical goth-wear. You know, the chains, the make up, the secondhand almost-stylin' fedoras, the bondage pants, whatever. He had a tattoo of a skull superimposed on angel wings, and her eyeliner was smeared down her cheek to her jaw.

Who doesn't stare when they see people dressed like this?
And who wouldn't glare back at them as if the starers had intruded?
I can't blame them. I've been guilty of the same act. Yes, I have walked around in a sleepy mormon college town wearing getup similar to theirs. I got plenty of nasty looks. And the nasty comments I got were from my sister.

But I wasn't staring at them to disapprove, No. I was admiring their art. The art of looking different, the art of being different, the art of trying, the art of maintaining that edge. The only time I dress like that is when I'm making a statement. Those statements are reserved for "I can do this, watch me," and my annual boycott of Valentine's day.

I think this momentary passing stuck with me because I did feel mildly affronted. I wasn't looking at them out of deprecation, but out of admiration.

But then I turned that around: How many people's glances have I misinterpreted? Is there any way of knowing whether or not I am misinterpreting those fleeting looks? Had I been dressed in my own goth outfit (and not the mildly hippy looking one I had been wearing) and passed the same couple under the same circumstances, would they still have had the same reaction?

we are not alone.

he calls himself god's version of a crash test dummy. a sick and twisted soul.
i don't see that in him.

what do i see?

i see a confused child, wondering, wandering.

he has some inclination of where to go but he gets distracted by shiny things along the way.
he picks up the glitzy trinkets, fingering them, awed by their brightness.
he forgets that it's just the trash left over from another person.

the trash consumes his vision, his hands, his mind. he sits down on the side of the road and just stares.

sometimes he realizes that it's crap, and moves along a little farther. he keeps walking a little bit. until he forgets what's trash and what's not and picks up a sequin shard and marvels at that instead.

sometimes he finds a truly fantastic piece of trash, marvels at it longer, and then puts it in his pocket to take out occasionally while walking.

the thing is he's so fascinated by the crap in his hands, in his pockets, that he can't look up. He can't bear to see what makes the shiny things shine in the first place (the sun)
he can't bear to see the true beauty around him - the beauty he can't take with him, the beauty that is even more so when he keeps going further.

i know he's seen glimpses.
but his pockets are simply too full.


STRIP IT OFF AND RUN NAKED. I DARE YOU.

i know you know you want to.

you can know what it's like to be free.

i promise.