Red Man

After almost half a year, I have FINALLY written something I like. Now that's writers block for you.

I'll give you the moon, Mary

I love this scene. It is one of my favorite scenes in movie history. I often think that Jimmy Stewart was more american than John Wayne.

Christmas is coming. And while I can't stand people who don't even give ghouls and ghosts of Halloween a chance before they start stringing up their Christmas lights, I am deep down cousin to them. I love Halloween, it is one of my absolute favorite holidays. A day that has turned into the celebration of candy, what could be better?! What I really love is that it is one day where the community celebrates one another, literally opens their homes, and it's ok to make little kids cry. However, I would be lying if I said I didn't hum the occasional Christmas carol on slightly chili days (ie 72 degrees) or looks up sentimental clips of It's A Wonderful Life.

Part of tonight has been somewhat exhausting, but oh so rewarding. God takes such good care of me. Sometimes I feel not only like the lost sheep, but the lost sheep with Downs. And the most beautiful part of being led back to the flock are the different shepherds God uses to get you there. > You pick me up, put me on your shoulders, and carry me through anything. Thank you so much Ace.

I hope I can give back to this world as much as I've been given in one person.

Oh, and here you go just for kicks, because he's amazing and does a pretty dern good job

I am Nuwanda

I am going to run a half marathon.

Cocoon

Have I ever told you about my room?

It's a great room.

I sit cross legged on the most beautiful quilt that mom surprised me with. It's a soft white color with vertical rows of grey and yellow branches. "It's soothing," she said, justifying the price as she clutched it to her chest in a Target isle. "It is." I agreed. Two or three more paces past it and we decided that we were better bargain shoppers than this, and left it on the metal rack.

And yet, you'll never guess what I found in my closet the night I packed for college.

I love this room.

I rest my head against my crafty self made headboard and look out. A very narrow bookshelf with very few books on it has been spray painted a robin egg blue. On it's shelves sit pictures of France, and a large framed photo of my grandparents on their wedding day. They are sitting in a car, they are beautiful. It's taken as if someone from the passenger's seat turned around and leaned over the center console to capture them. Behind them out the back windshield you can see the headlights of some old vehicle, all rounded and bulging. I think it is my favorite picture. It's why I'm here, really. A few books accompany the pictures, the rest is mostly journals and very crucial white space.

In the corner of my room is a fantastic antique chair that I got by default, seeing as antiques give Mr. Kenny the heebie-jeebies. It shelters a silk throw Ms. Kellie brought me from India and a purple glittery pillow.

To my left hangs a 2x3 foot picture of a girl in a black ball gown advertising some winning champagne of 1929 Napa Valley. Opposite her are framed pictures of my cajun relatives in Mary Janes and sailor suits. One of the pictures is over exposed, like walking out of a theater at midday. All thirty six of them pose on the front porch of a tiny house with a raised porch and an acadian styled roof.

A burlap Saints bag hangs from my door.

I can't wait to have a whole house to do this to. To have a home that shelters everything you serve, fuss over, nurture, love. It seems only right that it should be beautiful.

Goodness

I have just recently learned that people I thought were good were not very good at all. In fact, they were quite far from it. And it makes me wonder, did I really think them good people, or do we just settle for mediocre people and call them "good" because the actual good ones are so few and far between? Then suddenly what was really just "good enough" becomes good to us, because actual goodness is becoming such a rarity. It is something to naive to hope for in most encounters.

When I stop to analyze the people I come in contact with, I realize that most of them are not purely "good." That, when it comes down to scrapping it out with themselves and the other guy, people aren't exactly Mother Theresa. But hey, they are generally nice people and kind on a day to day basis, so they'll do, right?

To find people of a higher caliber, people of real goodness, would be to challenge myself. It is a task, hard work. I'm not saying they aren't out there, that I don't know any, or that our society is doomed or anything really awful like that. I'm just saying that they seem to be stretching thin. With age and the fading away of naivety I am beginning to realize man's depraved nature for what it really is: something quite real.

So I challenge myself, and you, dear reader, to challenge someone who is "good enough," to real goodness, be it a friend, stranger, or yourself.

Game: blouses.

My pouty purple postcard guy from Kelsea, bought somewhere in Texas. He's too cool not to share :)

Like a school kid waiting for the spring

After an incredible weekend, I'm back in Monroe. A four hour drive and a night class finally brought me to a clean apartment and a postcard waiting on my bed. It's a painting of a very pouty man with a fantastically purple shirt, courtesy of my sweet roommate thinking of me when she saw it. So there are good things to come back to in Monroe. Sort of.

This weekend was incredible.

Thursday night was spent sitting around the Hinnenkamp house with the whole family (minus Andrew) plus a few Tulane friends. What a blast those people are. Being there is all part of being home. Then I was onto some random bar in a random part of town with random people from high school. Oh joy.

Friday however brought the laziness of not getting out of bed until 11 and, best of all, my man. What rejuvenation. There's nothing better than being caught up in a foot's difference embrace. That night mom, Andrew, Garrett, Mindi, Lynsey, Jerry and I all went to see The Thing. It was very disturbing and very disappointing. Both of which were expected. But my gosh was it fun

Saturday was a lot of wonderful nothing; pinochle with the Hinnenkamps (which i actually get!! sort of...) and dancing in an upstairs office.

Sunday marked the start of another long month. And here I am, back in Motown, babbling on in a blog instead of writing the two papers I have due tomorrow.

I am so burnt out on school. Burnt out to the point that a four day vacation isn't nearly enough. To the point where the longer the vacation, the harder it is to start again. Especially one as wonderful as this one was.

Norah Jones plays from a speaker somewhere behind this screen, and Madame Bovary stares up at me from her pastel colored book cover.

*You're blessed to be a scholar, you're blessed to be a scholar, you're blessed to be a scholar*

Nope, still don't want to write these papers. Maybe a Heineken will work...

Farewell, or shall I say Auf wiedersehen

"You are a lone reed"

Joe Fox: N-Y-one-five-two. One hundred and fifty-two. He's a hundred and fifty-two years old. He's had one hundred and fifty-two moles removed, so now he's got one hundred fifty-two pock marks on his... on his face...
Kathleen Kelly: The number of people who think he looks like Clark Gable.
Joe Fox: One hundred and fifty-two people who think he looks like a Clark *Bar*

It's Wednesday morning, I've slept later than I have in a very long time. Midterm Day literally took everything I had out of me. My last blog post was the only bit of sane thought I had left-i squeezed it out, talked (probably insensibly) to Andrew, and slept for ten hours. Now, my New Yorker coffee cup sits half full beside me, and You've Got Mail plays on the tab next to this one. I could watch this movie everyday.

What would it be like to own a bookstore in New York?...Probably very stressful, since no one reads, and if they do it's through a screen. It seems like such an overly romantic idea, but, someone somewhere does it. Maybe just any store, I think I'd be happy with any store as long as there's wood floods and a real bell on the door. And that door would be wooden, and heavy.

I have class from 4 to 8 today. I'll come home, throw some clothes in a bag and hit the sack. The next morning, hopefully are 7 o'clock, I'll get in William Shatner and head to Baton Rouge for the second time this week. :)

I'm starving, inappropriately want stuffing for breakfast, but will resign to eating oatmeal, for the billionth time this month.

Happy Wednesday everyone :)

The Wind that Shakes the Barley

I just watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

I don't even know where to start.

Ireland.

I want to go so, so badly. What an amazing people. I'm fairly certain they are the most incredible country on the planet.

I can't possibly imagine standing around with ten other people, discussing the ten thousand troops of British soldiers in your country, and deciding to do something about it. It's hard to picture that kind of bravery at the core of any local man you came across. People then were a completely different breed.

I honestly don't think most realize the constant struggle Ireland has been in for centuries up until just these past few decades. Always being invaded, never fully conquered.

An entire people being taxed to pay the wages of the soldiers who searched your houses and murdered your people. Neighbors dying with green mouths from eating grass in starvation.

And I want an iphone.

Midterm week? Midterm DAY.

So it's 7:35 am and I have been relatively awake since 1:45 am.

While Maryland was literally one of the best weekends of my life, it left me on a time crunch. Monday I drove back from Baton Rouge just in time to make it to my 4 pm class, go to study group at 5:30, ANOTHER study group at 8, get home and sleep from 11-1:45 and now here I am.

Why you ask?

It's midterm day, upon which I have three grueling midterms that are about to be the end of me.

I'm sitting in my jammies with a cup of repeatedly reheated coffee and a loss at what else I could possibly say about the limitations of the Monarchy from Anglo-Saxon to Medieval England.

HOWEVER.

It is all so so so worth it, because there are so so so many things to be happy about.

I had the greatest weekend with the most incredible man I could have ever asked God for.

I have a new pair of boots that I got for more than 50% off (courtesy of the Mamma)

I am receiving an education

I have coffee :)

I have a roommate who brings me coffee :) :)

All the pictures in our living room have been hung...hanged...whatever.

I have a MASSIVE bruise on my leg that is a testament to me and the man's 20+ mile bike ride.

I am Spartacus.

In two days I will be going to Baton Rouge - again. Only this time I will see all my girls. Drinks with Lindsey Miller and Courtney George, and a whole weekend involving Lynsey, Kendra, Mrs. Joan, and the Mamma.

Andrew is coming to town :) :) :)

Until then, we have two eggs, a box of Oatmeal, and a jar of roux. That, a great deal of joy and an even greater cup of coffee will get me to Thursday.

I got them moves like Jagger

At three a.m. I jumped out of bed wide awake.

Every light was on. The fire, carbon monoxide, and house alarm were all going off.

Actually it was just my phone. And actually every light in the house was still off, leaving it feeling twice as big and twice as dark. A coherent thought finally made its way into my head, "Time to go to Maryland."

Mom stumbles into my room in a long sleeve shirt and jammy pants. She looks like a little girl. She hangs for about two seconds, and turns without a word for the coffee pot.

I guess it doesn't take much to get us going. Thirty minutes later we were both in the truck zooming towards New Orleans and belting Moves Like Jagger (sexiest song alive-which I am listening to now.)

She whisked me away with a kiss and a designer necklace to borrow for the weekend. She's kind of awesome for all of the above.

5:00 am, I sit in a terminal of business men in stark suits, already on their computers and crossing things off legal paper. I look down at my tights, comfy boots and boarding pass.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

A common misconception

‎"Alright bud I'm going to join the chain gang."
"What?? I guess I could invest in leather chaps..."
"You're not getting this....Chain gangs are groups of people chained together for labor or rigorous work."
"Oh...I thought you were talking about ruffians going around beating people with bits of linked metal."