Cinderella Was Right; Dreams Really Do Come True!

Some people talk about out of body experiences. You know, those small moments in life that make you wake up and see the world for the truly great place it is. I had one of these moments a few nights ago at a local bar in town. I wasn’t meditating, I wasn’t taking acid to broaden my mind, I was just having a few drinks with a friend to console him due to the fact that he had been broken up with over a text message that day. It was a normal night. I was just going about my business bonding with the whiskey in my glass and occasionally offering up a pat on the back to my grieved friend when it happened.

 I walked outside to the courtyard of the bar and began talking to my friend. I nonchalantly took a seat in the chair next to her and glanced around to see if there was any one more interesting to talk to. There, four feet away from me, sat a man around the age of twenty-five (the term ‘man’ is used VERY loosely here). I kind of recognized the t-shirt he was wearing and looked about four times as I was almost certain I recognized the person wearing the shirt. As he got up and awkwardly walked away after the quadruple-take , I was certain I knew who it was, and he was quite a bit heavier than the last time I saw him. Yes ladies, the dream had come true and it was truly one of the greatest moments of my life; my ex-boyfriend had gotten fat. He is now a fat fat mcfatty fatterson. He had been getting a little chubby during the last stretch of dating him, but in the last month the pot smoking and the taco bell eating contests must have really caught up with him.

We sat in the bar for the rest of the evening, both not willing to make eye contact with or acknowledge the other person, both not willing to be the one who gives in and leaves the uncomfortable situation, and I kept glancing over not believing my good fortune. I know some of you may be thinking that this sounds a little mean, but this is the moment that every girl who has had her heart broken dreams about; the moment where she can glance over at the man she once loved and say, ‘Ha!’.

So here’s to you, taco bell. You truly do make people’s dreams come true. I cheers my next whiskey drink to you.

The Drawer of Animosity

I have been in a bit of a transition the past couple of weeks. I found myself ending one lease with a two week "layover" period before my next lease begins. I live in the same town as my mom, so I simply moved into her house for the time that I would have otherwise been homeless (the new lease starts next week though, thank god).
The hardest part about my living hiatus, though, is the girl who took my place at my last house. She has been best friends with my former roommate for years, apparently, and moved down a week early to...hang out I suppose. Let the animosity begin now. I have a lot of bills and being a server doesn't exactly make me a millionaire, so I work a lot of long shifts. "Sarah," as we'll call her, started nagging at things right away. "Who left the dogs out while they went outside to smoke a cigarette?" "Who put the box of trash in the trashcan?" "Who didn't put my Sex and the City DVD back in the right place facing right side up?" And my favorite, "Do you have your stuff packed yet?"
Now I'm not intentionally a cruel person, but I have a bit of a temper, and I usually enjoy choosing the immature path in the midst of my anger. So, since the texts (yes, these were mostly through texts) began rolling in before my time in the apartment was even up, I found myself often to busy to finish packing. So, she continued to sit on the couch, watch the four New York City gals get into shenanigan after shenanigan, and send me increasingly harassing texts.
A few day after the first came and went, I finally got a truck and moved my furniture out of the family room, in which it was then currently stacked. It was hard to move around in there, and I finally had sympathy when my ex-roommate texted me and asked me to do something about it.
I was observing my seven year old niece the other day, and noticed that she does things similar to this when she feels she is being treated unfairly. Not on the same scale, of course, but she still acts in the same sense and the two twenty-something year olds did. In other words, we both acted like seven year olds.
Is this, then, the inner child that everyone deems so highly? Maybe we shouldn't be looking for the inner self that was lost with youth, but continuing to repress it so that we don't act like children in grown-up situations. Or, maybe passive aggressive jerks shouldn't be so just uptight when others stand up to them in a...fun...manner.

Blocking the Writer

I recently learned the other day that a guy in my poetry class made the "cash" motion with his fingers, and declared that he could not wait to be published so that he could begin rolling in the dough. First of all, it's poetry. You will never get rich off of poetry. Second of all, his poems are all about Kansas and trains. He wrote a poem about watching a train go by. You know how long it takes for a train to pass, especially when you're in a hurry? That's what it felt like listening to this man read his poem. Like it would. never. end.
I mainly wanted to take a minute to talk about the problems that I had with his statement. Writing is an art form. It's extremely difficult and takes a long time to hone. And getting published? It doesn't just magically happen not to mention the amount of time it takes to make a steady income after publication.
I believe that people should write because they have something they want to say, or they just want to entertain. Yes, someday I hope to get published and "roll in the dough" as he put it, but that's because I would like to make my chosen path my career. Not because I think it will bring in quick money.
So to all of you out there who are just doing this for quick and easy money, you're probably not that good at writing anyway without passion, and quit degrading it for the rest of us who are passionate about our craft.

Importance of Memory

I recently had an assignment that required me to write a short story on a memory which was important to me (and that taught me a life lesson). While looking back through my life to decide what to write on, I began thinking; what makes these memories important? I am especially referring to memories which I have from when I was a small child. One particular one entails my family getting into our car when we lived in Albertville, France. I would guess that I was maybe three years old at this time. I remember going around to the back of the car where my father was leaning into the trunk for something. I don't remember what I said to him, or what he was doing in the trunk, but I clearly remember the physical action of walking back there to him. Could something in this moment have made an impact on me that may affect me to this day, even though I have no clue as to what it is? Or is it simply that my brain was starting to retain information at this time in a longer term than before?

Noticing which memories came most easily to mind also got me thinking about what is important to me. There are the obvious ones such as friends and family, but what sticks out to me the most when I look into my former years are the times that I spent in my childhood. The years between ages four and eleven were the ones which I dwelled on the most. I spent those years as a missionary kid in Ivory Coast, and had to leave pretty suddenly. I have come up with two reasons why I look back on that time so fondly. First, it was the closest thing I've had to a home during my life so far. Moving around doesn't exactly make for a stable environment when you are a child. Secondly, I believe that the fact that I had to leave so suddenly marked it immediately as a bit of a golden age in my life. It is the same when people die; they often become glorified within their memory.

I finally chose a story about a chicken we received as a gift when I was around four years old. My sister and I befriended the animal, not realizing that it was meant to be our dinner. I mark this as my first great learning experience through failure because even though I (supposedly) stood my ground and exclaimed, "friends don't eat friends!" I ended up eating the most of the chicken after it was cooked. It showed me that, although it is admirable to stand up for something you believe in, it is also best to accept defeat when nothing can be done about it. Either that or I am a morbid human being who simply learned that she will never be a vegetarian. Also a possibility...