Between You and Me

Between you and me and the Internet, let me just say that I'm scared approximately out of my mind, so I'm not really sure where my mind is going because when I'm thinking I'm thinking down eight different paths, and I can't follow any one of them to their logical conclusion because that's when I realize I don't know.

Anything, really.

So between you and me and the Internet, allow me to say that publishing these fears and emotions across an open forum where anyone who can use Google and knows my name will find it scares me just as much as any one of the pages in my choose-your-own-adventure book.

Between you and me and the Internet, I want to move to the city with you so I can see the skyscrapers in the reflection of your glasses.  I want to find that greasy spoon diner where we can go for breakfast every week and where the coffee tastes like mud, but you drink it anyway, and I make fun of you because tea is so much better.  Or hot chocolate.  I want to curl up on a threadbare couch with barely any cushion to it and sleep curled up in your arms because it's safest there.

Between you and me and the Internet, I want to spend days going through every single one of my Poem-A-Days and tack them all over our walls just so I can see if they'd be good for wallpaper.  I want to read your poetry all the time or at least keep it in my purse for rainy days.  I want to drive you to work and drop you off on the corner and do circles around the block until I need to pick you up again.  I want desperately to make out on public transportation and claim no regrets because I don't think I could ever be ashamed of that.

Between you and me and the Internet, I hate the carpet in your basement, or at least I don't like it as much as you seem to, but I would be willing to sit on that floor if it meant sitting with you.

Between you and me and the Internet, I love you like mad and all it takes is a Facebook post to make it official.

Thank you to Sunday Scribblings for the prompt: Between You and Me.

White Christmas

Today we're nearing the end of November and the beginning of December.  Yesterday I walked around in jeans and a t-shirt, and this morning I seriously considered taking off my army jacket that makes me look super cool because I was warm.  But for the sake of coolness, I kept it on.  (I'm sure you were worried.)  That and I didn't want to have to carry it to the Dollar Tree.

It's weird that it's so sunny all the time, and I can safely assume that what it looks like through the window is reflected in the temperature.  For example, sun means warmth.  Comfortable warmth.

And the trees haven't gotten the memo that they're supposed to get naked by now.  I'm not kidding, all the trees are still completely dressed.  Although I'm not sure I really want to see a palm tree naked, I do think it would be funny to see all those big fan leaves yellowed and crumpled on the sidewalk.

This is when I start realizing that I'm not in the Midwest, but it's supposed to be fall turning into winter.

Right about now if I was back at home, I'm pretty sure I would be bundled up in a jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves.  I would be sharing pockets with the boy because his gloves don't have fingers and my pockets are warm.  I would probably wear a sweater to class and then remember that it's in the general classroom building which is usually hotter than Hades year round.  And when I forget that I have class in the science building because that's where they stick business classes, I'd just shiver through it.

It might be sunny back home, but if you step out of the house without a jacket, you'll just have to turn around and grab it because sunshine does not equal warmth in the autumn months back home.  Some of the more reckless folk would just venture out in a hoodie, but I've always been one of those people who's always cold, so...jacket and scarf it is.

All the trees would be naked and prancing about.  That's right, the trees prance about in the Midwest.  Yes, yes they do.

And any day now there would be snow.

I'm swiftly coming to terms with the fact that I can dream of the white Christmases I used to know as much as I want, but chances are it's not going to snow in Florida.  This is slightly depressing, but the prospect of finding a palm tree to decorate with Christmas lights is just about as exciting as the idea of putting Christmas lights on a cactus.  Not sure how it work...but it would be worth a shot.

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.  Just like the ones I used to know."

- 'White Christmas'

The Future

We're all afraid of it to some extent.  My boss told me last year that I'm perpetuating my own fear of The Future by capitalizing unnecessarily in my Twitter hashtags and whenever I refer to The Future.  Like right now.  The Future.

As a new graduate from university, college, whatever you call it, The Future is staring me right in the face.  When I think about it, it feels as if I need to make decisions about The Future, which makes sense.  Choose your fate, all that jazz, because we make our own fate, right?  But when you pick a path, don't you eliminate the possibilities and the potential of the paths that you could have chosen in the first place but didn't?  I have ideas, and some of them are silly or downright crazy, but I'm afraid of picking just one because I would have to commit to just one idea.  I don't want to limit myself.  Which is all well and good, but when The Future is standing nose to nose with you and you're still avoiding eye contact...it gets a little awkward.

I know one thing for sure.

I want to write.

I don't really care what else I do to maintain time and funding for writing, as long as it doesn't suck out my soul and leave me too drained at the end of the week to do anything but sleep.  I'd really love to be able to do something that makes me happy, and inspires me to write.

So the things that I've been thinking about for The Future all go in different directions, but these are my thoughts because I'd rather write a blog post right now than do the homework that I'm so good at procrastinating.  (Actually, if I could get paid to procrastinate, I would be richer than J.K. Rowling.)

Editor
I like helping people fix their written work.  I really like writing all over a piece of paper and drawing arrows and giving feedback about a person's work.  I like critiques.  I like workshops.  I like playing around with sentence structure and playing with other people's ideas.
I've been reading about book editors for the project that I'm procrastinating right now, and the majority of what I've read talks a lot about figuring out if a certain idea or book will sell and then selling that to the market.  This sounds a lot more business-y than I'm willing to be, and not a whole lot like what I've thought editing is like.  I'm wondering if I'm thinking of a different type of editing or if I'm thinking of lower level editors instead of the head honcho of a publishing company.
I don't really need extra schooling to be an editor or work in the publishing industry.

Student Affairs Professional
I really loved working as an RA at school.  I really enjoy working with first year students to help them figure things out, and I've always loved being a big sister or a mentor for those who are younger than me.  Though I say that I hate people a lot of the time, the truth is that I actually do like people.  I like being able to see that I've helped someone out, and I like being able to help people learn and develop.  My boss at school had a big impact on my senior year, and I want to be able to pass on that help to someone else.
I've talked to my boss and people who I know who are in this field, and their passion for their work is infectious.  It's one of those things that I get really excited about in bursts, and then get lost in trying to figure out how to do it.  There's probably a lot more administration and paperwork to be done in this field than I'm thinking, but being able to see that I'm making a difference or helping people would be huge.
I would have to go to graduate school, preferably for some college student personnel Masters degree.

Librarian
I love the library.  Though there are some libraries (particularly academic ones) that creep me out, I really love the idea of neighborhood libraries and how they could be a central hub for a community.  Creating community was a huge thing with me in college because I was an RA, and I would want to do things to create or maintain a community in a neighborhood because I think that would be really neat.  Plus I would love to be able to share my enthusiasm for books.
I'm not really sure what a librarian does outside of shelve books, assist with research projects, recommend books, help with homework, or plan community programs.  I've heard that librarians at academic librarians have to write papers and present them at conferences, but that's not really something I would be interested in.  I want to be able to help people somehow.
I would have to go to graduate school for a Masters in Library Sciences.  Which I have no idea what it means.

So what I'm saying is that if I pick one out of these three ideas, chances are I'm going to have to go to graduate school, and then I'll have to worry about all of those things.  I really want to be able to see that I'm making a difference in a community or a person's life or in their written work.  Another thing about these is that editors and librarians are sort of on a sinking ship what with self-publishing and e-books.  So I'm not really sure if either of those careers would look like something I would want to do in The Future Future anyway.

I suspect that I'm thinking too much, which is usually the case for these things, but I can't help but sit on that rocking chair of worry and get nowhere because it feels like if I'm worrying about The Future I can justify not doing something immediately.  What I'm saying is that I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and I'm not quite sure that that's okay anymore.  I'm getting bombarded from all sides with questions of what I'm going to do or who I'm going to be, and the only answer I have is "I don't know yet."  But that doesn't seem to satisfy any of the askers.  Trust me, it's not making me feel any better either.

"It's time to begin, isn't it?  I get a little bit bigger but then I'll admit I'm just the same as I was.  Now don't you understand that I'm never changing who I am."

- Imagine Dragons, 'It's Time'

Thinking about Writing instead of Writing

So my friend, Katie, and I decided that we would do NaNoWriMo.  After years of talking about doing it, I actually committed, re-signing up on the website and keeping up a word count, and saving my day's writing and all of that.  I wrote every day except yesterday.  And, well, today too.  I'm getting horribly terrible at getting myself to write all of a sudden, and I suspect that it has to do with the fact that my "novel" has no plot.    I'm writing two different sections with characters and stuff (which is hugely specific, I'm well aware), but right now neither of those sections have a plot.  Which is mildly irritating, but I'm going to try my best to persevere.

I'm also thinking that I need to learn more things about life and stuff in order to write more better things.  Yeah, that's right, I said "more better," because that's definitely a term.  And it's awesome.
Point being, I think that I need to learn more.  I want to learn more about topics that I'm not familiar with, if only because I want to be able to go on a game show and be awesome at answering the random questions.  That, and I love being a fountain of strange knowledge, so this calls for reading.  Reading of strange sources of information and the like.  What's great is that the Internet exists, which is pretty awesome.

As for learning about life, that would just come from experiencing more of it.  Actually taking chances to explore and have fun.  Go to speakers, listen to people, go to events and places where I've never been, and the like.

More genre experimentation.  I haven't played around with genre outside of fantasy, and I think that that could be fun.

I'd also like to play around with different styles of poetry, different forms of writing.  I haven't done a lot with forms, and I think that that would be challenging.  Especially since I don't think I'm particularly good at form poetry.  I could also do more with lyric essays and non-fiction type deals.  Or maybe I could write a song.

And then I need to figure out what to do with my writing.  Do I want to rewrite everything I've ever written?  Do I want to submit them for publication?  Do I want to peddle them on street corners?  Yup.  Need to figure that out.

So there are lots of things that I need to think about with regards to my writing, and get back on track with NaNoWriMo.  So enough of the procrastination, let's get writing.