evocative object

So,we had to pick an evocative object from our lives and write it on an index card today.

I thought of my bike and the trails, 

but there was another something that wouldn't be ignored. 

I couldn't stop thinking about my lost mystic topaz ring .

Synthetic, but That big bauble of a cocktail ring...too big for my fingers. 

I lost it the first night I ever went out at college. 

It slipped off my finger when I tripped and fell

2006, On a college lawn in Muncie.Indiana

early September.

I lost my only real piece of jewelry my mother had bought me at that point.

The silver was hammered and gorgeous.

I was hammered that night and not so hot.

I lost a lot of faith that night. 

Hell, I almost lost a lot more than just my dignity that night. 

I feel like if I just got back that ring I'd be a little more whole.

Fuck. 

Every time. Thinking about that ring makes me embarrassed, mad, and achingly sad. 

He said We could find it later. It had made sense at the time. 

I wonder if anyone found it. It's hard to imagine it not being found

(I hope it was, but I almost hope it's half buried and waiting)

It was gorgeous, and meant(means) a lot to me. 

I had just wanted to go back to my room. Didn't feel well.  That's all....

and I lost my topaz ring. 

.....gah. That's one object I'd like back. If there's anything I regret and would definitely change from Ball State.....it's that night.

I wish I still had that ring, and maybe then everything would have been alright?

No, definitely not, 

but I feel like If I could just hold it in my hand again

 Id look into the cabochon, 

its facets and feel relief maybe absolution. 

I was just a stupid little girl. I've never drank that much again. 

I should have been taken care of. I should have had some sense, but couldn't see past the 'cervezas' 

It was like a premonition for all that came after....

......But i'm good where I am. 

I just don't wear rings often. 

...I lose my breath just looking at that one. 

I don't mean to seem shallow.

There's just a lot wrapped up in that image. 

........and I slept through Lear last night :/ ...

Summer can't come soon enough. 

King Lear

Ian Mckellen in King Lear on PBS tonight at 8. Yup, i'm there. :P

(I needed a change of scenery. Thank you Hoodlebug Trail.)

I want to curl up in the small earthy places of the world. They happen under pine tree hideouts all full of  soft needles. There the warm cushion of silence, singular to evergreens, can soothe all anxieties. I want to get lost in the plastic bagged sandwiches, orange soda, and fanny packs of the past. Crushed mint leaves and rain water in a cup. Tree sap darkening my hands. 

Can't wait for the summer sun. :)

-make your(life)self-

disconnect

I know when to soften myself

 curve a corner

lean peacefully beside another. 

I know how to give people what they want

 to see, to hear, to be

 I'm just not sure how to make them fit with me. 

(with few exceptions)

just wanna sing

  I need tomorrow to come (Friday), not because it's the weekend, but because it means I can sing. I can sing as loud as I want to in my van tomorrow night and I'm pretty excited about that The walls are too thin here, or else my shower would be a perfect performance space. :)
    My voice is nothing special, but I haven't been able to stop singing since my babysitter nursed me on musicals Labyrinth, Gypsy, and Les Mis anyone? :) I feel sorry for my friends, that means my Labyrinth love is not only current, but nostalgic, and thus....it's never going to go away. I should probably apologize to the friends I put through CATS in middle school. :) Bring on the dance sequences and solo stylings.

  

  

I wore a sequined bow-tie and a spangled red belt in elementary school chorus and sang show tunes. I even did a handful of community theatre shows, and had one-step-above-the-chorus parts in our 3 middle school musicals. As a HS senior I came back to the stage and loved it, even when my voice cracked. :P
 

  I just love to sing. I don't necessarily love the stage, but I love to sing. I don't think it can be helped at this point. 

Secret: I've always had the fantasy of singing at an open mic night and playing acoustic guitar....but instruments mystify me and I'm very sure my voice and nerves are best suited for the interior of my AstroVan and my 'lucky' friends. hehe I'm not too shabby on a tambourine though. la la la

Non-Secret: get me in a sing-a-long in the car and quickly turn the radio or switch songs and you'll be sure to catch me unawares. It's on my list of least favorite things. :P

Recommendation: Do not quickly turn the radio or switch songs on me when we're having a sing-a-long. You'll make me blush, if that's not a rare enough event. XD

......maybe if I just hum in the shower i'll get my fix for the night. 

Secret: I do miss it sometimes. 

Oooooh and Neil Gaiman (hero) is going to sign  my ' graveyard book' at the sigma tau delta convention in minneapolis next week!!!!!! I wish I was going along, but I'm sure my fellow STD-ers will do me proud and project some fangirl vibes. :D  ::giggles like a little girl and does a dance:: yayyyy

Two Days before the Vernal Equinox=sunshineeee

life felt like this today.... 

....so sunshiney that  I wished I had a tambourine 

or someone to play guitar while I danced like an idiot :D

Don't say 'cunt and/or pudding' around me

cunt and/or pudding
Besides it's social and gender connotations, 'cunt' is a very harsh sounding word. the 'K' and "nt" are like a slap in the face.
And 'pudding'.....well besides pudding looking like snot, it's not one of my favorite sounding words either. :D

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

bit o' fiction.

    ......after a long day serving the masses...and too much anthropologie.com

Cám ơn ông

She goes to the salon because the old Vietnamese man with paper skin will hold her hands for the price of a French manicure for her brittle nails.  He doesn't have to look her in the eye or attempt broken small talk.  The name on his station is An and he's a saint.

Along with polite grimaces, both know the acrylic dust in the salon will someday choke his airways and metastisize.  Nonetheless her grubby nails were buffed and the dead skin deftly shaved away each appointment.  He held her hands delicately, ordering her with jerks of his chin and pointed looks, while mumbling abuse in a language beyond her comprehension.  She rested in his gentle hands.

Most of her days are spent laboring at Ethan Allen; goddess of lacquered wood and overpriced luxury, slave to the rich and tasteless seeking safe haven between four poster beds, a beacon of shining silverware atonement.  Her own apartment features packs of ramen noodles stacked on a three hundred dollar side table and a designer duvet half on the floor.  It overflowed the two-layer stack of mattresses in the corner of her bedroom.  The whitewashed cupboards featured songbird porcelain pulls hiding only boxes of oatmeal with little else to hide the bareness from the shelves.

Somewhere in the upper cabinets, not easily reached, an ancient bag of Spangler Circus Peanuts leans, which she was thinking about righting, as the woman buying the two hundred dollar sheets in safe, safe, cream fumbled for her cell phone.  She was surprised the phone didn't slip like a silver fish from those neon acrylic claws.  Somehow the woman managed to toss her credit card from the bouquet arranged in a Coach clutch.  They glittered in the flourescent  light; betraying their debt. The unfortunate one of the other side of the speaker must have displeased the lady, because as the salesgirl asked about her shopping experience, the woman's lips bulged angry with cheap Restalin.  They looked like two bloody strips of T-Bone trying to make a run for it. 

"I don't care if you have the flu or the bubonic plague Virginia, just get it done. God, you never gave your father this trouble.Fine. Fine."

Now, she knew better than to make careless judgements, but after three years in the retail of fine home furnishings and accessories, she could tell when to play the unassuming help and when actual opinions and signs of intelligent life, or at least when enthusiasm for the client's third set of dinner plates in a calendar year, were needed.  The woman's lack of taste showed through the layers of barely matched labels worth more than the salesgirl's rent and withered any common ground the two might have found beyond how great cream is, because yes, it really does go with anything.

"Did you find what you were looking for today"

The lady tossed over a platinum card of plastic and grabbed the girl's hand in the process. Rubber met velvet. 

"Hold , Hold on Delores." she tapped her understated manicure and smiled. "You should really get tips on. These make your fingers look stubby. Where do you go?" Her smile was more terrible than her permanent sour disposition.  Her teeth were broken white tic-tacs.

"Mrs. M-"

"It's Ms. and never been more satisfied. You should see the young thing I've got on the side now. Amazing what a divorce can do."

"Uh, yes. Ms. Mannfield. Thank you for shopping with us. I hope you enjoy the sheets, they're fabulous and maybe next time you come in I'll have found a new manicurist, you never know! I go to a little place in Westwood. I'll see what they can do. Thank you , now."

Since finding out the world wasn't all sunshine dust and giggles, she'd found a special talent for giving customers what they wanted to hear.  As a rule, in life she had trouble distinguishing between the desires of others and her own needs.

Her name is Mary and she subjects herself to Ethan Allen and fantasizes about stale Circus Peanuts she'll never open. They were collecting dust fast from childhood.

Her name is Mary and she knows exactly what to do when she sees expectation in the eyes of others. 

Mary imagines what An's family is like and if he smiles for them.  She's never seen him move those thin lips into a natural genial expression. When she goes to the salon next week she will squeeze his hand and give him her thanks. Only in their carefully negotiated silence has she learned to be at home.