When You're Not Looking

Something happens when I walk into a bookstore. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like I'm sitting in the roller coaster waiting for the ride to start. My stomach's gripped by this anxiousness, this nervousness.

I walk around book displays of new fiction, of the great artists, of journals, of greeting cards, of books on sale. I peer and smile and laugh to myself, at myself. I get enveloped in the store, in the shelves and shelves of books, of people. I want to read every book; I want to wrap my mind around every book and make it a part of me. I feel like Johnny Number Five, "Input...More Input!" In fact, I can see myself in my mind voraciously reading book after book in the store, throwing them over my shoulder.

You know, the feeling, the feeling where if you could spend as much time as you wanted, as you needed, in a place, you'd know. I walk into bookstores, and I get this feeling like "this just might be the day!" The day of what? I don't know, the day of finding out, the day of getting it, the day of everything.

I got misty in Barnes & Nobles today while looking at a book of wedding vows, felt ridiculous looking at a book of 100 sex positions while an old couple were looking at a book on investing like a foot away from me, strolled down the New Age and Eastern Philosophy shelves looking for answers, and of course bought none of the books mentioned here. It may be prejudiced, but I've always thought that New Age and Eastern Philosophy books should smell mystical and like incense. And if you've seen one book of sex positions, you've seen them all. And the wedding vows...well, I'm pretty sure Josh and I will say the traditional wedding vows. At least, I think so, but who knows with this wedding.

I really did feel that way though, you know, if only I had enough time.

posted by molly @ 6:09 PM 0 comments

It's all swirling together lately. Constantly, I'm thinking, "Okay, so I think I've found the dress (check), the location (check), the colors (check), and I need to start thinking about an officiant..." And that's just the beginning of the circling tangent that usually leads me into feeling like I'm not getting anywhere with it.

And it's been less than two weeks, so I should feel good about how much we're sorting out. I have post-it note lists covering my day planner, my walls, my desks. They're just random scribblings of ideas to throw into the pot of other ideas to hopefully come out to being one of the best days of my life. A small part of me wants just a simple family wedding, but my side alone brings about 90...so much for simple. And I want my friends there; they mean so much to me, to us. Anyway, no matter how I act on the outside, I want the cool wedding.

We have these conversations every night that are slowly revealing to us how much we have to do in the next eleven months, how much we have to grow up. I mean, last night, I had to ask about insurance. I've never worried about any form of insurance in my life. But I don't see that as a bad thing at all.

Daunting, yes; bad, no.

Last week after 3 midterms and 2 quizzes and 1 group project, I went home for a show. Quite possibly the one of the best things, I could have done after a week of hell.


Here are some things I've noticed about myself lately:

I'm a question-asker.
I make weird faces and noises at myself in the mirror when I'm doing my makeup or my hair.
I yawn no less than 10 times when I first wake up in the morning. Morning, who am I kidding? Afternoon.
And I love stretching in bed after waking up from a great nap.

posted by molly @ 1:29 PM 0 comments

As I flew into Raliegh Thursday night, I longed for a notebook or anything to write on. So I mentally wrote about it on the scrap of a receipt that I was sure I would find in my bookbag if I actually felt like searching. But you know how it is, the minute you have a piece of paper, you want a bigger one for all the words you want to write, for all the things you see. So, I made myself remember and saved the words for here.

Out of all the times I've flown, I've never landed at night, or maybe I have, but it has never caused so much amazement. Above Raliegh, the lights from the interstates, the airport, and the neighborhoods were incredible. At first, I whimsically decided that night sky was below me, but instead of the usual cold, clear night, the stars were dressed up for the occasion of my landing in warm golden shrouds.

The night sky below me transformed itself into golden galaxies swirling and gestculating out in space. Then, it was a masterfully woven spiderweb, luring its prey forward into its depths with its golden silk. No, I was wrong. The lights were rivers and creeks, trickling golden across the dark land below me. And as we descended closer, I couldn't believe that I had mistaken these lights for anything else than the moon hitting the tops of the waves of an unknown ocean and the clusterry line of lights ahead obviously the spray at the tide hit the shore.

Flying always amazes me, usually leaving me in a world of snow-white clouds and thinking that they look so solid, just a big bed of cotton. Magical, really...although I'm beginning to wonder if I am using magical too much as a classification of wonderfulness. I'd hate for magical not to be magical any more.

Usually, words and thoughts and images come so easily. The easiest but somehow the hardest words come when I honestly feel them.

So here's how I feel:

ecstatic
nervous
daunted
happy
beautiful
tired
magical
wonderful
...
...
...
But mostly, after this weekend, I primarily and foremostly feel engaged.

Insert goofy grin paired with a happy dance and blatant showing-off of the ring here.

posted by molly @ 11:03 PM 0 comments

I Am Admittedly A(n)...

people watcher. Lately, I've noticed that usually those who wear helmets while riding a bike are more cautious or even timid while crossing a street than the varied multitude of those on campus who don't wear helmets.

penmanship pirate. Throughout my life, I've stolen bits and pieces of others penmanship to improve my own. Harmless, really, just a "M" here and a "G" there. I'm taking a little bit of the person with me as I go through life, even if it is for mundane things like signing a check.

clock watcher. I'll tell myself that I won't look at the clock for another five minutes, then I'm watching the clock so I know the five minutes is up, so I can look at the time.

at-arm's-length picture taker. I go through the stacks of pictures I have, and I see all these pictures of myself taken by myself. They are chronicles of what I looked like and usually on the back what I was doing. The reason I have so many? The last picture of almost every roll, every disposable camera is taken at arm's length.

frozen-food doctorer. I'm too lazy to cook my own food from scratch. So, I get (say) a bowl of Uncle Ben's Chicken Alfredo, and I'll cut up tomatoes and grate cheese and add seasoning before I microwave. And you'd never know it was frozen food unless I told you.

posted by molly @ 6:11 AM 0 comments

Reasons Why It Should Be 7:56PM on Thursday # 10003, 10004, 10005, & 10006 :

A shared muffled laugh is coming from bathroom along with the pounding sound of the shower, and it reminds me of my void.

I actually avoid them when they are in couple form. They remind me alot of us, laid-back and not too couplish around others. But its there when they smile at each other. I can't logically blame them for causing the scab to be ripped off the wound, but God! I miss laughing in the shower and waking up to give each other closed-mouth kisses because we both drank the night before. And it shouldn't matter today, it really shouldn't.

I'm leaving for North Carolina tomorrow at 7:56 pm to have a mini vacation, hopefully set in a cheap motel somewhere. I have a soft spot for cheap motels. You walk in and realize that the room is exactly as bad and as cliched as cheap motel are supposed to be. There are no pretenses, and it is obvious why you are there. For some, this may leave their experience sordid and gauche, but maybe their intentions are just being shown.

We aren't there for anything other than each other.

I know that romanticizes it a bit, but nothing beats renting a movie with no intentions of watching it and not having to be anywhere other than in bed with the person you love.

posted by molly @ 1:20 PM 0 comments

Confession:

A couple of years ago, I painted this painting...somewhat abstract. At the end, when I looked at my product, it was somewhere between decent and good. And then, I squeezed a whole bunch of purple, red, and yellow onto the canvas and proceeded to mix it into this great circling blob of brownish-purpleness.

Why?

Because the painting wasn't what I wanted it to be. It was good, but radiating a totally different personality than I wanted. So, I did away with it. I never threw it away, which is funny. And eventually my mom put it with all the years and years accumlations of my art. And its still sitting there, unofficially given the distinction as being part of the art collection. Every now and then, when sifting through my doodles and my paintings from 5th grade, I look at the blob and try to remember if the other painting was really all that bad, and I'll put it back in the art box.


Listening to:

Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced--Dropkick Murphys

posted by molly @ 11:14 AM 0 comments

Old Men & Withered Flowers

So, my odyssey to work, which takes place about 5 days a week, gives me plenty time to think, to observe, to prepare myself for the fast food world. So many things on this walk just make me stop and enjoy life, for instance, the pair of acorn-tops that had dropped in a way that my oh-so-enlightened imagination saw as a pair of boobs or the rainy day when the sky was dark and steam coming from vents by the Natural Resource Building reminded of me of a horror movie or a haunted house.

Or the herd of old men who cross the intersection of Oak and Florida between 4:30 and 5:00, with their lunch pails and their old men paunches....Some darting daringly across the street, holding on tight to their old men work hats, while others wait obediently at the crosswalk, holding their lunch pails in front of them with both hands and rocking back and forth on their feet.

Or the now withered flower ring over by the Ag Engineering Building. One day last week, I was hurriedly walking, constantly checking the time, and stressing because I was running late. I don't know how I noticed it, but I sensed that that area was different somehow. Looking down, I see this little crate dug into wood chips. Inside was a bright yellow flower surrounded by green berries surrounded by red berries surrounded by a ring of little purple flowers. Interesting thing...I have no idea where the flowers came from. There are no flower beds close to there still bearing flowers. And that makes it that much better. Not only did someone take the time to make this little ring of flowers in this busy, but they also took the special effort to get the flowers. Now, the flowers are withering, but in a way, the ring is that much prettier...the colors of the flowers have deepened, and someone added little rays of green leaves around the edge that were blowing away as I walked to work today.

posted by molly @ 10:43 PM 0 comments

If you wake up one morning and realize that you don't like your life, change it then. I know it isn't that simple, but why let it fester? And I know its easier to let the silence envelope your life, it's easier for the questioning to stop. But I particularly don't want my life to fall prey to 'comfortable' and 'content'. They sound so great, don't they? But I don't want to stop learning. I don't want to stop reinventing. I don't want to stop living.

And I wonder if they ever see it that way, if they ever look up in the bathroom mirror after brushing their teeth, and see this unfamiliar person in the mirror. When does being able to give your children a college education overtake the ability to laugh, the ability to love? And don't get me wrong....I'm grateful...more than grateful.

Everyday she wakes at 5 and does her mysterious morning dance. Mysterious, because I've never seen it in action. I wonder what its like, the early morning breakfast taken while standing at the counter, the silence of the old house wrapped around you like a dry corn husk. I wonder if that's the time of day she dreads because there's only silence...or if that's the time of day she lives for.

He wakes around 6:30 or 6:45. "Molly....Molly...Sam....Sam...It's 6:30" For years on end, this human alarm clock...it didn't matter if I was 11 or almost 18...or the fact that I had an alarm clock...shouted up at the second story. I also can't tell you what he does between 6:30 and 7:00. I can tell you that it involves a brewed pot of coffee...or when he's feeling lazy, 2 or 3 of those microwavable instant coffee...some sugar, no cream. From 7 to 8, he's always all business, except for "Good morning, kiddo!" or the occassional blues song that would grate up the morning nerves. But I think the silence comes to him at night. I think that when he lays (or lies, not, lies, is it lies?) on the couch, mindlessly watching the pictures on the television (ever notice that sometimes its not the TV, its the television) change, that's when the silence comes for him. So, many nights I've come in late and heard him talking to himself...maybe with his head in his hands.


I'm not really sure where I was going with this. I went upstairs for a glass of water and came down wondering if I talk too much...if I just have way too much to say. And funny thing is is that those can be two totally different things.

So, I'll just say this...I've watched the clockwork of my parents for the last 19 years. And yes, they are my parents...but most importantly they're people, people held hostage, locked with themselves, with their lives. And its pointless to say, but if I could do it all over again for my parents, I would say "No" for my mother...and I'd pack my dad's bags for New York and its music scene. I think that he would have loved it there...and he knows that, too.

And if I wasn't here, if my brothers weren't here, that'd be okay. No matter how much I love them...or hell, no matter how much I love myself and my life, it'd be okay.

But I don't think I want to end on that, I would just erase this and call it a night. But I think that I know that that last couple of sentences would infuriate my dad. And I can see why...we're what they gave their life to...and I guess that can't be wrong. I wouldn't want to discount everything they've done for us...and everything they've made us to be, for better or for worse. And I think I understand now....and I think I'm going to let it go.

posted by molly @ 1:10 AM 0 comments

When I find a new song that strikes me to the core, I'll hide it from the world. Clutching it to my chest, I don't want the world to change it. But even more, I don't want the world to know it. It's mine, that feeling is mine. Something beautiful and sacred, and I don't want the world to paw and grope at it with the unthinking, grubby hands of adolescents in the darkened make-out room.

It's selfish, I suppose keeping something so moving to myself. I often rationalize that it is a song that I can find the lyrics to on the web, so it is possible that people could stumble across it as randomly as I did. And that the random finding will make it just as special to them as it does to me, because it can be theirs. Sometimes this leaves me feel like a Veruca Salt, waiting for an educated Eggdicater to sort me out. But notice, I have yet to say what song brought all this about.

I want the world, I want the whole world, I want to lock it all up in my pocket

posted by molly @ 12:32 AM 0 comments

Things You Would Never Know Unless I Told You:

My bed sheets constantly have cookie crumbs in them. Doesn't matter if I haven't ate a cookie in the bed for months, I always manage to find some. This leads me to believe someone is eating cookies in my bed, on purpose. Ok, so its far-fetched, but it could happen.

The smell of blown-out candles makes me so happy. Sometimes, I just light a candle to blow it out. I thought about it, and I think it comes from memories of birthdays with all my family singing "Happy Birthday" with the lights off, waiting for me to blow the candles out. When I was real little, I used to start crying during the singing part because I'd get overwhelmed by the thought of all those people loving me.

posted by molly @ 1:38 PM 0 comments