The New Year

Today, I stumbled upon my prompt box.  The one with the pretty strips of paper all folded up and full of interesting prompts upon which to write.  Well.  Things to think about writing about.  Because you know what, I'm going to end that sentence with a preposition...and everyone's going to like it.  So there.  Anyway, I pulled a prompt:

"Turn to an entry in your journal or diary from a year or more ago.  What has changed and what has stayed the same since then?"

Naturally, that brought me to look at this beauty from a little more than a year ago.  As far as attitudes go, I'm pretty much in the same place.  I relish the idea of growing old versus growing up because it makes my brain hurt in a not quite unpleasant way.  And I wholeheartedly agree with Past Brianna that I would much rather grow old.  There will be no growing up here.

As far as life goes, this time last year, I was living in Florida.  I was packing my bags to get ready to come back to Illinois.  I had no job prospects, and no idea what I was going to do with my life past move into my childhood bedroom in my parents' house.  I was newly single, I was irrationally bitter, and I knew that I was going to miss the support and friendship I found in my flatmates.  I had also just finished off a tiring week of work, and was excited to get to a more normal work schedule for my last week.  I was also writing angsty and/or conflicted poetry, some of which turned out well.

This year, I still (unfortunately) have no idea what I'm going to do with my life.  But today I'm at home in Illinois temporarily because come Saturday, I will be driving back out to Nebraska where work has taken me.  I have a job, I have my own place to live (rent-free), and I have excellent co-workers who I'm looking forward to getting to know even better during the next couple months of 2014.  I'm staying in touch with the majority of my flatmates, as well as classmates from college and high school.  I'm just finishing up a relaxing week of rejuvenating "at home time" and there's a part of me that's itching to get back to Nebraska.  Today I find myself irrationally optimistic when I'm not choked with terror, and making Shrinky Dinks, because that's what a 23 year old does with her free time in her childhood home before she gets back to her "big kid job."  Though I can't classify under a specific heading or genre...I'm still writing poetry that echoes way too much of my current life experiences.

My one conflict with my past "journal entry" is that though I agree with it and want to put it into practice, I'm currently in a job that requires me to act a mite bit older than my true age...because I manage college students.  And I'm no longer a college student, so I can't buddy-buddy with them.  So I find it more difficult to not grow up, or to do justice to my desire to never grow up.  I wouldn't say that I think my soul has died and I'm now an adult, but I will say that I can't run around coloring on walls with crayons or rolling around in the snow in front of my Nebraska home.  Frustrating, yes.  But I'm sure the universe has its reasons for putting me through this.  (Oh gosh, that sounded a lot...I don't know, but I'm leaving it because I'm too lazy to find a way to re-phrase.)

Onward to create more Shrinky Dinks!

Happy 2014, let's make this one a great one!

"When you grow up, your heart dies."

- The Breakfast Club

"There's a poem in that..."

I was thinking recently.  About poetry.  Specifically the writing of it.

I've been having difficulty coming up with new ideas for each day's poem, and it's been enough of a struggle that I'm pretty sure I've written about the carpet in my apartment at least twice, and cornfields more times than I can count.  This lack of variety strikes me as disturbing if only because in my first year of The Poem-A-Day Project, I stumbled upon some new topic every single day and that created some sort of variety in and of itself.  Maybe it's because my life has settled into some sort of routine that doesn't allow for exciting poem topics, so I have to make them up myself.

Or maybe I'm just not paying attention.

That first year of my poetry writing, I was surrounded by people who would stop mid-conversation and say, "There's a poem in that..."  Maybe not surrounded, but I definitely spent a good amount of time with the small number of people who would make that observation.  Of course there was a poem in that.  There was a poem in the epic battle between humans and zombies, there was a poem in the dining hall's lack of Sunday dinner, there was a poem in the sidewalk cracks between my dorm room and my first class of the morning.  Sure I revisited some of the same topics over and over again, but the images that showed up in each new poem were different because I was doing something different almost every day.

Now that I'm not physically around people who can make observations about finding poems for me, I'm coming to the slow realization that I have two options:
1.  I can go glue myself to the sides of the people who can find poems for me in conversations and daily life.
2.  I can start paying attention.
Part of my willingness to glue myself to the side of poem observers comes from missing them so much, but I think there's also a level of laziness there too.  So that leads me to conclude that paying attention is really my only option for writing some wonderful poem that isn't about how Nebraska isn't Chicago, because let's face it, that's been done about eighty times, and people are going to start to get bored if they ever read my Project from beginning to end (then again, won't they get bored with parking lot poems or "It's my senior year of college" poems?  Oh well.).

So here it goes, my mid-October resolution to pay attention in order to write more interesting poems.

Ready?  GO!

"Every day you play with the light of the universe."

- Pablo Neruda

Dependent

I'm having a problem.

I feel like I depend on other people far too much.  I have a couple examples, but the most glaring example is at work.  Yes, I'm learning how to do things and I'm getting into the groove of things, but I feel like I'm probably asking questions before trying to figure out the answer on my own because it's easier to ask the question first.

I spent a lot of my first semester of my senior year of college asking my boss what I should do in nearly every situation.  Having trouble with a desk aide?  I asked my boss what I should do.  Hearing RA gossip?  Talked to my boss, asked her what to do.  Not sure if it's a date?  Asked my boss.  I'm not kidding.  And every single time I came to her with a question, her answer was, "Brianna, what do you think you should do?"  I don't know if it's because she secretly didn't have the answer, but I like to believe that my boss knew exactly what should be done, but she wanted to see if I could figure it out for myself.  Because that question irritated me so much and because I got frustrated every time I had to tell her, "I don't know..." I started coming into meetings with my boss saying, "So I'm having this problem, I'm thinking of doing this, is that right, or am I missing something?"

This might have something to do with my need to have the right answer.  It's not that I need to be right, it's that I need to get an A on that paper, and get every quiz question right.  For some reason, I depend on the people around me to affirm my actions and pat me on the back.  I'm not sure if this is a normal thing or if it's some form of self-esteem issue, but I'd really like to pretend that I don't have self-esteem issues.

I'm not saying that I don't want people in my life, it's just that lately I'm starting to feel like I put a lot of stock into the opinions of others.

Which feels like a bad thing.

Right now, I have a Post-It stuck to my office computer monitor that asks me: "Brianna, what do YOU think you should do?"  I kinda feel like I'm starting from scratch again here, but I'm hoping that this Post-It and my awareness is going to help me figure things out.  And I know that sounds silly or trite, but there it is.

---------------------------------------------

I'm still doing my Poem-A-Day Project.  This should come as no surprise considering I've gotten into the habit of writing every day, and now it's a habit I haven't yet broken.  Strange enough, I wrote today's poem yesterday.  Which is almost virtually unheard of...but I still feel like I need to write right now, so there may be two October 1st poems.  Unfortunately I don't have a challenge for this month, but I'm sure I could tackle more Halloween poetry if the occasion calls for it.  So yeah.  Poetry.

Lame Brianna.  The end.

"You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.  So let them go, let go of them.  I tie no weights to my ankles."

- C. JoyBell C.

The City Slicker

It was a while ago in the dining hall over plates of lukewarm chicken and waffles (mine with maple syrup but sans the hot sauce because I forgot and wouldn't have known where to find it anyway) that a student staff member asked me if I was writing a blog about myself being "a city slicker in Nebraska."  [This is where I remember that it's Friday and that I could totally do a Poetry Friday thing.]  I told her that I wasn't, thinking that I am writing a blog...kind of...and that was a kinda mishmosh personal blog mixed with poetic things and writing things, all of which no one reads.

So this leads me to the question "Should I start a new blog exclusively for my Nebraska adventures?"

But maybe I should rewind.

A long long time ago in June, I interviewed for and got a position at a college in Nebraska.

Things you should know:
1.  I'd never been to Nebraska.
2.  I'd never heard of this college.
3.  When I looked up the town on a map, there were two major roads that intersected in town and the rest was blank open space.  Presumably, cornfields.

I had three weeks to pack up my worldly belongings, load them into the rickety gray mini van that my brother and I grew up in, get my affairs in order, and voyage to small town Nebraska.  The stress of preparing for my voyage was more personal than it was professional--for instance, I discovered that the only dress pants that I owned no longer fit (because I lost weight).  I also discovered that a very small amount of my make-up was work appropriate.  I had a second stage break-up with the boy, and every single one of my friends made fun of me for moving into the middle of a cornfields.  In fact, my friends wrote a scavenger hunt for me of things that I need to find while I'm in Nebraska.  Unfortunately, I'm not doing very well keeping up with that.  Oops.

Anyway.

When I told people that I was moving to Nebraska, they asked me, "Oh yeah?  Omaha or Lincoln?"  My answer?  "Neither."  For people who don't live in Nebraska, Omaha and Lincoln are the only two names you'll probably know, and both of them are on the far east side of the state.  Everything else (just about) is small towns and cornfields.

So I've been here in small town Nebraska for a little over two months.  Based on my observation that I get restless weekly on Sundays, and the tendency for business establishments to be closed on Sundays, I have begun to learn that the pace of life is indeed slower here.  I'm not pretending to know everything about Chicago, especially since I only just started exploring and meeting the interesting people right before I left the city, but I do know that on a Sunday, it wasn't really a question of "Oh, is that place going to be open?" unless we were talking about Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-a.  I'm not saying that being closed on Sundays is a bad thing, I'm saying it's different and it's an adjustment for me.

It also occurs to me that I don't really know what a "city slicker" is.  But thanks to Wikipedia, I now know the technical understanding of the term.  I like to think that I don't fit this type.  But that could just be me.

Small town life is interesting.  I'm not 100% enmeshed in the town life because I work at the college, but I do frequent the same grocery stores and coffee shop as the locals, and I like to think that maybe one day the checker at Pac 'n Save will recognize me as "the girl who buys SO MUCH TEA" or "the girl who buys plain yogurt and asks about jasmine rice because she's dumb."  I'll take what I can get, frankly.

For now, I'm still getting used to Nebraska life, but according to the welcome sign on the highway, Nebraska "...the good life."  (and it's also the home of Arbor Day)

"One of these days I'm going to leave Nebraska, cut all those strings and ties and travel to the other prairies of this earth.  I must know if the people who live on those other prairies feel the same way about their horizons as we do about ours."

- John Janovy Jr.

What's a Shiv?

"Don't worry, Anna will protect you in the dark across campus."

Anna looked up from her half-painted fingernail at the expectant face of one of the younger girls and the sarcasm traipsing across the face of her co-worker.  Being one of the shortest and scrawniest people on staff, Anna was probably the person least likely to be able to defend anyone much less herself, if the occasion called for it.

So she nodded solemnly.  "Oh yeah, of course!  I've got pepper spray.  And a shiv in my purse."

The girl asked, "What's a shiv?"

Anna laughed in that Pssh, you don't know? sort of way and explained that it was a makeshift knife that could be used as a weapon.  The girl's eyes widened while Anna's co-worker smirked.  Of course, if this were a real rather than fictional shiv, it probably wouldn't have been allowed.  Anywhere.  Outside of prison.

"Have you ever used it?" Anna's co-worker asked, feeding the story but interested to see where it went next.

"Of course I have, on my ex-boyfriend's car."

Anna's favorite part of the whole storytelling experience was to watch the faces on her audience.  She could tell that the younger girl immediately believed in the maiming of a car but wanted to figure out for sure if it was true.  And her co-worker was giving her a look that said, Okay, but seriously now.

"Did he have leather seats?"

"Not anymore he doesn't."

"Did you carve your name into them?"

"Of course," Anna said, grinning wickedly.  Her audience went quiet, a mixture of skepticism and respect floating in the air while Anna bent her head down to finish up painting the nails on her left hand.  It was a couple minutes before anyone spoke again, and by then the conversation revolving around Anna's destructive streak could have dissipated.

A pause.  Then, "Did you really do that to your ex-boyfriend's car?"  Not the younger girl, but Anna's co-worker.

Anna just smiled and shrugged.  So what if I did?

"And though she be but little, she is fierce."

- William Shakespeare

Painkillers

"I haven't seen one of those in forever," she said, smiling and pointing at the neon orange and cream bead gecko I had attached to my car keys.

I stopped fumbling in my purse for my wallet and the correct change for my Tylenol and looked up to smile back.  I explained that I just found the gecko buried in a closet, but I loved it, which was true.

"I used to make those all the time," she continued, taking the ten dollar bill, the only thing I had in my wallet under twenty and above one.  She was quick about ringing up the change and handing it over, not even glancing at my penguin boxer shorts or the pink and white socks I had chosen to wear with my black clicky flats.  "Have a good night!"

I pushed the door open and left the building, shaking my head.  At 1:30 in the morning, this woman was not only awake, but smiling as she worked the front counter of a gas station and served nacho creations to the night owls in town who made comments about how a "pog would really make my day right about now."  As I turned the key in the ignition of my beat up mini van, I shook my head, still awestruck that I hadn't been judged for my strange apparel, my appearance in a gas station well after daylight hours purchasing only painkillers, or the fact that I was quite clearly not from around here.  Pulling up to the parking spot labelled specifically for me, I thanked whatever guardian angel had chosen to watch over me on this not-so-great night, sending me someone cheerful, positive, and even a little nostalgic.  Because just as much as the Tylenol, that was something I needed.

More Things I've Learned at Home

Even when you're at home, out of school, you learn some things.  And seeing as I'm going to be leaving home for a job in Nebraska, it seems fitting to post this now.

1.  The people who go to free library or community events are typically the same age as your grandmother.
2.  If you knit for long periods of time, your fingers can seize up.
3.  Marshall Field's will always be Marshall Field's.  The walking tour guide said so, so it has to be true.
4.  You may follow your stomach down Epic Lane, and find yourself on an Epic adventure you didn't expect.
5.  Go to the House on the Rock in the summer.  Or go in the winter, freeze your toes off, and get a personalized tour.
6.  The creepy people will find you.  And they will talk to you.
7.  "Oh, you must have a teen at home.  Oh--oh, you just like reading...well keep reading..."
8.  The day you want to go to the library to get a movie, they will be closed.
9.  Sometimes you need to bring a bodyguard.
10.  There are significantly more interesting things to do around the city that aren't necessarily advertised or Google-able.
11.  Storytelling is beautiful.
12.  Pre-screening interview?
13.  They're your parents, so they're going to ask you where you're going and when you're going to get back.  You'll be lucky  if they don't ask who you're going with so you don't have to say, "Well...no one..."
14.  The days when you write a to do list and accomplish all of your tasks will be your more fulfilling days.  Make more of those.
15.  The cheese curds are good.  The service, not so great.
16.  "Don't mess with her, she doesn't have a pancreas!"
17.  Right hand turns on red lights are more important than the life of a pedestrian (she says after basically being hit by a car, thanks lady!).
18.  You've been to this building multiple times, you know that the elevator goes to the 8th floor, and yet you still insist on taking the stairs up to a locked door and getting lost.
19.  Not all people will understand your sense of humor and you need to be okay with this.
20.  Sugar does not alleviate caffeine jitters.
21.  Keep on writing your e-mails the way you do, because it's awesome.
22.  Sometimes being 22 is rough.  Other times it's great.  Find the in between.
23.  Demon wine.  Never again.
24.  Irrationality.  All over the place.  All the time.  And that's okay.
25.  I can't remember what I did for fun when I was 12, and I guess that's going to have to be okay.
26.  Trekking up and down all the stairs in my house is an ordeal.
27.  Interesting people are few and far between.
28.  If you bring someone to a party with you and share a drink with them, chances are the people around you will assume you're "together."
29.  NaPoWriMo exposes you to interesting poets and poetry sites if you're inclined to take a gander.
30.  Always be prepared to cry during a Doctor Who episode.
31.  Okay, so insufferable and cruel characters can turn out to be endearing and clever.  Thanks for proving me wrong, Logan Echolls.
32.  When given a number of songs to include in a playlist, you may exceed this number.  By a lot.
33.  Make change.  Yeah.  That's a pun.
34.  Carry cash.
35.  The El is awesome.  The end.
36.  Chances are there is parking where you're going.  Although 95% of the time it will be permit only parking or you'll have to pay.
37.  You'll remember the knot when you get there.
38.  You may expect to see a lot of slave Leias at the comic con, but chances are you'll only see one, and her boyfriend will be dressed as...himself.  Disappointing.
39.  Be careful who you're talking to when you joke about stealing something off a person's table.  That person just might be the writer.  Oops.
40.  Stairwells.
41.  Honesty and a lack of secrets bring you closer to a person you didn't think that was possible for.  If that makes any sense at all.
42.  "We deserve to be more than 'just' anything."
43.  Painting yellow over gray takes far more coats of paint than you originally anticipated.
44.  The thing you will miss most about college is the community.  Specifically the creative community, but also the school family.
45.  When you come home, you'll realize that having a roommate was really kinda nice.
46.  Sometimes there is an unspoken deadline.
47.  Poems sold from a gumball/vending machine are the best poems.  Well, best poems for the fifty cents you pay for them.
48.  That person you met once is now following you on all social media outlets, and you just want them to go away.
49.  There are some people who you really want to be friends with, so when you finally do make friends, this is a huge and worthwhile accomplishment.
50.  The opinions of some people matter more than the opinions of other people.
51.  Poetry readings in an apartment or a bookstore, infinitely better than poetry readings in large spaces.
52.  The poet recognized your face too, you don't have to feel dumb for not recognizing him at first.  Oops.
53.  "Are you sure you can live in a small town?  I mean, you are from Chicago..."
54.  My room will always get significantly worse before it's even close to being clean and straightened.
55.  Sometimes doing the right thing is more difficult and hurts more than doing what's easy, but in the long run, it'll all be okay.

"Puttin' on a cowboy hat and a pair of boots doesn't make you country; Like puttin' on a ball gown and heels won't make me Cinderella."

- Kellie Elmore

What Can I Do?!

Today I'm trying to clean my room and bring the rest of my things down into the dungeon, and I found this list folded up in one of my desk drawers.  This is the exact order of this list, and I haven't changed anything past the title.  I may have been on to something here...

What can I do?!
- actor
- writer
- librarian
- stage manager
- set designer (scale...)
- lighting designer (possibly science...)
- director (stage/screen)
- historical consultant
- dramaturg (I don't know what this is...)
- mime
- French translator
- teacher (eh?)
- playwright/screenplay writer
- pirate/sailor
- something GS related
- Creative Writing Teacher
- professor
- speech writer
- waitress
- book shop owner
- Disney worker (imagineer?)
- worker at the Renaissance Fair
- governess
- nanny (like Mary Poppins!)
- professional turtle tosser/letter writer/ (galactic) hitchhiker
- journalist (or not...)
- zoo keeper

The Poem-A-Day Project

The Poem-A-Day Project started on a whim in September of 2011.

(BRIANNA and KATIE are two college students, walking back to their residence hall on September 1, 2011.  It's a beautiful day, and they're crossing a parking lot.)

KATIE:  Hey, you know that challenge where you write a poem every day for a month?

BRIANNA:  Yeah, that's crazy.  I don't know if I could do something like that, I'd probably give up the first week.

KATIE:  Yeah...

(pause)

BRIANNA:  Wait a minute...it's September 1st!  Wanna give it a try?

KATIE:  Yeah, okay!

On that day, it began.  Every day I put a poem in Katie's mailbox, and she became September's "Poem Keeper."

It didn't stop after September.

Each month I had a different Poem Keeper who I gave the month's poems to in order to keep myself from reading the poems and judging them in their rough and initially unpolished forms.  Poem Keepers could read the poems, but they couldn't talk to me about them until the end of the month when they returned the entire month's worth of poems and I read them from the perspective of never having read them before.

I thought I might stop after six months.  And then I thought maybe I would stop after I graduated from university.  Then I figured I might as well finish up the calendar year of 2012, but it didn't stop there either.

At this point, I've been writing one poem every day for almost two years, documenting my life and writing some really weird or fun things in a poetic form, and I have no idea if there's ever going to be a point at which I say that I'm done with this project.

What's in store for the Poem-A-Day Project now?  I'm looking for a way to bring my poems to the world.  At Printer's Row Lit Fest, I'll be at the table for Here's the Story with a gumball machine that'll dispense poems in little capsules.  And I'm working on putting together a manuscript of my favorite poems from the project.

Thanks for reading!  I'm always looking for tips, guidance, advice, or shouts of encouragement, so feel free to leave a comment, I will read them all!

"That night when you kissed me, I left a poem in your mouth, and you can hear some of the lines every time you breathe out."

- Andrea Gibson

A Common Household Scene

(It is a Tuesday afternoon, and BRIANNA returns home after spending time at the local library (not the one she planned on visiting), applying for a job.  Note, "a job" because the application for that one stinking job took an eternity to fill out.  When we find BRIANNA, she is laying on her back on the hardwood floor of her family's kitchen while her father passes by to get to the family's computer room.  DAD is not paying attention, but doesn't step on her because that would absolutely awful.  MOM is chopping onions on the counter nearby.)

BRIANNA:  (undisguisedly pleased with herself) I applied for a job today!

DAD:  And?

BRIANNA:  And...I applied for a job today!

DAD:  And?

BRIANNA:  ...um.  It's not--

DAD:  Did you get it?

BRIANNA:  It's not an instantaneous thing...

MOM:  Now's the waiting game, dear.

DAD:  Oh.

MOM:  You're starting to sound like a Millennial.

BRIANNA:  Ouch.  On behalf of my generation, I am injured that you would call him one...

MOM:  Isn't it the Millennials that want everything to happen right away?

BRIANNA:  Maybe?  Did you also know that the older generations think we're shitty?  Thanks...thanks a lot.

(BRIANNA lays back on the cool floor as DAD heads over to play on the computer and watch drum solos of Katy Perry songs.  MOM continues chopping onions.

Scene.)

If I told you that this is a common conversation in my house, you probably wouldn't be surprised.  Well, if you know myself and my parents at all.  Okay, maybe the Millennial comment is unusual, but the rest of it is right on.  I just thought it was important to include everything in the conversation if only to get a decent length for this post.  Yup.

I really wish that this wasn't a common conversation.  What can I say, I'd like to be lauded for my single job application because it was for Walgreens, and it took me two hours to do.

So...what am I really supposed to say to that single word question: "And?"  I guess I can think of a couple things:
-  "And I heard that the Blackhawks lost, that's a serious bummer, right?"
-  "And the weather's pretty nice, did you need me to pick up sticks in the backyard?  I'm just going to go do that..."
-  "And I actually heard back from them at the exact moment that I pressed the submit button, and good news, I'm moving out and I'll have a pay check that's six figures!"

Really?  This is going to be a recurring rant until about the time when I get a job, and by then, it's going to be a rant about how my parents hate my job because it makes me poor, or how I hate my job because it eats my soul.  So anyway, I understand that my father wants me to have a job.  At least, that's the only assumption that I can make from this single word question, because it doesn't really sound like he's saying, "Rah, rah, good job, Brianna!  Go you for applying for a job!"  I mean, I would know how to respond to that, I would just beam happily and preen.  Why yes, I did apply for a job, thanks for noticing, would you like my autograph too?  So...why exactly is my father demonstrating more impatience with my situation than I am?  Is he really that eager to get me out of his house?  Just curious.

On another note, I had a really awful dream about our house burning down, and my thought in my dream was "Shit, I only have one copy of every poem I've ever written for the Poem-A-Day Project."  Because part of me fears this is my seer potential tapping into prophecy that something terrible's going to happen to my hard copies, I'm typing up every single poem I've written and uploading them to Google Drive!  Who's excited to read all of these poems again and get them into some cohesive order?  THIS POET!  Yup.  That's the plan.

"What good has impatience ever brought?  It has only served as the mother of mistakes and the father of irritation."

- Steve Maraboli

Guest Post: Elizabeth vs. Miss Hudson

Ok, so, Brianna offered me the chance to do a guest post on her blog. Now, Brianna is epic, which makes her blog pretty epic, so really any posts on her blog should also be epic. I have to live up to transitive property.

(Am I off to an awesome start?)

In any case, I spent all day trying to figure out what I wanted to blog about. And while I was helping various students, I was struck by the realization that, while my friends know me as Elizabeth Hudson, they haven't met "Miss Hudson" -high school English teacher at Lowpoint-Washburn High School.  And just as my friends don't know Miss Hudson, my students don't know Elizabeth.

So who is Elizabeth, and who is Miss Hudson?

Elizabeth (n): 1). a reflective, introverted individual who opens up to people over an extended amount of time. 2) a middle child with a strange sense of humor but fantastic laugh. 3) a surprisingly morbid individual with more talents than what meets the eye. 4) an perceptive listener who weighs words wisely before offering advice. 5) a great lover of sleep, cats, books, and the color blue. 6) http://ehudson24.blogspot.com/ 7) me.

Miss Hudson (n): 1) first-year LWHS English teacher (10th-12th grade). 2) A supporter of dreams, artisan of intellect, and innovator of minds. 3) a weirdo with a creepy/awesome obsession with death, cats, and purple pens. 4) A beautiful individual in a skirt whom all the boys try to impress. See also: THE QUEEN. 5) A hilarious individual with a contagious laugh. 6) a stressed individual who tries to take everything in stride. 7) me.

And it's interesting to me to see the balance between the two.

(NOTE: I rarely if EVER refer to myself in the 3rd person, so don't judge me too harshly for the rest of this entry.)

I'm Elizabeth when I wake up and wish that I could still be sleeping. I stay in that mode while I put on make-up and dress professionally in preparation of being Miss Hudson (yes, I have purple and silver eye-shadow on, and hell DIDN'T freeze over. What. has. happened?!!??) The entire drive to school, I'm singing and waking up to my music, which brings me to the first clash of selves. Allow me to explain:

There is a male student who lives in Peoria with his mother, and has the same drive to school as I do. He's one of my favorites, but I'm fairly convinced that he has a crush on me (who tells their teacher that they "<3" them?). And since I'm still Elizabeth while driving to school, I find it really awkward to acknowledge his presence in any way. But since he's so used to Miss Hudson, capable of being beckoned simply by raising a hand, being ignored is totally weird...which is no doubt why he honked at me the other day. To get my attention. "I was waving like crazy but you were just singing away to your music with your little sunglasses on!" When he told me this, I smiled. What I didn't say was that I HAD noticed, but chose to speed up instead of wave back. (Which is why I also have to keep an eye out for cops as well as students).

This clash continues when I first get to school. The kids all stand in a line outside of the building before the bell rings at 7:50. They chat and mess around and whatnot...but they also have a tendency to STARE and maintain eye contact as you walk up towards the building. I find this to be especially true if I'm wearing a skirt or a dress. And, being an introvert, I like to have a little bit of time to mentally prepare for conversations. I can't tell you how many times a student has tried to greet me in the morning, only to get a half mumbled grunt back.

But the moment I enter my classroom, my domain, Miss Hudson is in control. Somehow I can make quick, witty comments on the fly. I can make small talk like none other. The boys try to impress me, the girls love talking to me, and they all try to make me laugh and smile (which, let's be honest, really isn't that hard). I make fun of myself, which they find fantastic. I'm patient and caring and genuinely concerned. They call me beautiful and a good teacher, and they truly believe it.


As of late,I believe it as well. It feels like my two selves are coming together as one. Maybe this is just what growing up and becoming an adult feels like. Teaching as Miss Hudson has done wonders for Elizabeth's self-esteem, which shouldn't surprise me as much as it does. My self and personality existed before I started teaching, so clearly it was in me all along.

I remember taking an education night class with a professor/high school teacher whom I wasn't too fond of during my time at IWU. What really destroyed my respect for her was a conversation in which she told me that she was surprised that I did so well in her class, since she thought I would be "too quiet" to become an effective teacher. And that's not the first time I've heard that comment. When I first applied to be a RA, I was put on the waiting list, because they didn't think that my personality was forceful enough to take control over a stressful situation.


If there's any point to my ramblings, I guess it's just this: don't underestimate the introvert. When they do finally speak, you'd best believe that they have something worth listening to.


And this introvert has had her voice all along.

A Letter to Tan Lines

Dear Tan Lines,

You know me.  We're pretty close.  I mean, you're attached to me, and I'm a little attached to you by virtue of your being branded into my skin.  But in case you're not familiar with my name, I'm Brianna.  Hey, how you doing?

Back in Florida, I noticed you existed because when I wore tank tops, you were there marking our the sleeves that I wore for my costume.  That costume was adorable, but the sleeves were just too darn long due to the unisex nature of those yellow and white striped button downs that we weren't allowed to roll up.  And then there were the tan lines that reminded me I had to wear socks that covered my ankles, leaving the knobs of my ankles down to my toes a pale Elmer's glue white.  Luckily you didn't mark out my skort because my thighs are always pale anyway.

Well.  I noticed you yesterday.  I thought you'd faded away completely and that I was back to my usual pale and fairly even self, but when I donned that tank top and went out into the sun yesterday, there you were.  Yes, you had faded during the winter months when I covered you up in sweater sleeves and long pants, but you're still there.  I could tell you were still there when I bared my shoulders to the sunlight yesterday afternoon.

And don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that I got tan rather than burned in Florida, but I'd really like the evidence of my shirtsleeves to go away.

So basically, I love you...but please leave.

Love,
Brianna

-------------------------------------------------------

Brianna Life Update:

The job search continues.

My internship has me doing a lot of things, and I'm still really excited about it.  A bunch of stuff that I wrote for the site has even been posted, and you can read all that here: www.heresthestory.org.

I'm still doing my Poem-A-Day Project, but for some reason I keep leapfrogging.  I keep forgetting to write a poem every other day, leading me to write two poems in a day...multiple days "in a row."  I don't know what's up with this, but it's something that I'm going to have to figure out before next month, because it just can't go on like this.

I'm still working on revising poems that I'm sending out to people as part of an artistic pay it forward type deal from Facebook.  I actually wanted to commit to doing that, because I know lots of people post those statuses, collect things from people, and then never actually send out art.  So...I'm doing that, but I'm having difficulty picking poems for people and making sure that they're pretty.  The only reason I'm posting this on my blog is because I'm fairly certain that the people I'm talking about have either forgotten that I owe them a poem or they don't read this blog.  So...I win.

I'm reading too many books at once.  Right now I have bookmarks in Act of Will and Wonder Boys, and on the almost immediate line up after those are The Handmaid's Tale and Beautiful Creatures, both of which I've borrowed from friends.  Though one of them I'm going to hold hostage, so go ahead and try to stop me!

I haven't been on any adventures recently, but I did buy new jeans (whoohoo!) the other day, and they look awesome.  Mostly because I'm wearing them, and I always look awesome, but also because they're super comfy.

And that's about it.  Happy Thursday!

"I think you are wrong to want a heart.  It makes most people unhappy.  If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart."

- L. Frank Baum

What Do You Do?

I thought I had an idea for a post.  Actually, I'm fairly certain that I did have an idea, I just chose to dispense with that idea for now because I stumbled upon my friend, Susan's, blog and I was intrigued by her post today as part of Blog Every Day in May even though I'm not sure that I'll be taking that particular challenge.  I've already got one challenge with my Poem-A-Day Project, and then the whole "figure out your life, Brianna" challenge.

So, Brianna, if you couldn't answer with your job, what do you do?

I write.  Lots of things.  Most consistently, I write blog posts and daily poems.  I write scribbles in a notebook that I keep in my bag at all times.  Every now and again I write a character sketch or an idea for a scene.  Over the summers for the past five summers, I wrote stage adaptations of Grimm fairy tales.  In high school, I wrote one act plays.  My last semester of college, I wrote short stories.  I've written lyric essays, but I'm still not absolutely certain what that means.  I also write letters because when I get writer's block, it's a really great and constructive way to get my thoughts onto paper without forcing myself to write something pretty.  Plus then someone definitely gets to read it!

I read.  As a result of my reading, I also leave books lying around the house everywhere.  I read multiple books at the same time because I suspect I have an attention problem.  According to my Goodreads account, I'm reading a bunch of books that I had to return to the library a long time ago, and if I wanted to actually read them, I would probably have to restart them anyway.  So honestly, I'm currently reading The Friday Society, and I'm carrying around Wonder Boys in my bag with a bookmark shoved between the first couple pages.  I also read poetry, though I haven't been reading quite as much as I want to, apparently I'm getting distracted by novels.  Oh, and comics.  Because that's a thing now.

I watch movies.  Mostly because I adore movies.  The last movies that I fell in love with were probably Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ruby Sparks.  There was a time when I was working through all the Alfred Hitchcock movies that I could find at my local library, then there was the phase I had when I watched a handful of Marilyn Monroe movies, and then there was my F-in 80s movie marathon weekend which featured Fame, Footloose, and Flashdance.  Everybody loves a good theme, right?  I aspire to watch AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies, although I'm kinda leery about a couple of the movies on that list.  Let's face it, I just want to see all the movies.

I intern.  I know this is kinda like answering with my job, but there it is.  Too bad.  Plus now I can repeat things that I've probably already talked about.  I numbered my internships based on the order I got them.  So Internship #1 is at Here's the Story, I'm the Communications Assistant, which means that I do social media marketing, write things, and generally take on assignments from my blue-haired boss.  Internship #2 is at Chicago Kids Company, and I help out the box office manager by taking phone calls and making reservations for teachers who want to bring their classes to our shows for a field trip.

I knit.  There was a time when I got home from Florida when I went into a knitting frenzy.  I knit a Hufflepuff scarf and a failed Hufflepuff hat for my friend, Claire, I made myself arm warmers, I think I knit something else too, but it was insane.  I have a pattern for curled toe elf slippers that I really want to make, but I'm terrified of messing them up because they're not square and flat...those being the requirements for all the other things that I've knitted successfully.

What else?

I'm pretty sure that's it.  I also do other things like clean my room, occasionally, wash dishes or do laundry for the family when I notice that it could probably use doing.  I go to free events when I remember that they exist.  I go out for drinks or pie with friends, so I eat a lot of pie and drink more alcohol than is probably healthy for someone who spends time with one person at a time and doesn't go to bars very often.  I also spend an unhealthy amount of time texting and checking Facebook.   I also watch television shows via Hulu or my friend's itunes because there's no conceivable way that I could possibly remember to watch a weekly show without setting a phone alarm.  Because that's another thing I do: I forget things.  I also procrastinate.  And I guess I job hunt right now.

So...those are thing things I do.  What about you?

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."

- C.S. Lewis

A Note on Comic Book Conventions

Yesterday I went to my very first comic book convention, C2E2.  To be quite honest, I had a blast.  Sure, my feet were killing me by the end of the day, but that's what you get when you wear Converse with no arch support, hooray!  But it was fine, all my toes are still in tact and I don't think I wore out my soles.

Spending as much time on the Internet as I do, I was primed to look out for people in costumes.  Good costumes.  And there were some good costumes.  But the originality was lacking.  I saw A LOT of The Doctor from Doctor Who, and the same ones over and over again: Four, Ten, and Eleven.  I maybe saw one Nine and one of the First.  And then there were a lot of superheroes and super villains.  Of course.  Makes sense.  But typical.  Lots of Harley Quinn.  The Joker.  Superman.  Spiderman.  Yeah.  So a little disappointed in that respect.

But really excited about other things.  Like the Doctor Who postcards I got.  And the Kill Shakespeare comic I bought.  That's right, my very first comic that I bought all by myself instead of getting it from a friend. There was so much to look at, and a couple costumes to guess about.  And of course, hanging out with friends.  Because they're awesome.

Unfortunately, I wrote yesterday's poem today.  And today's poem is not appropriate for this blog.  So...here.

April 26, 2013

I'd like to apologize, my friend,
for my offenses.
When I turned in my chair
and asked you to leave,
that was rude.
Then allowing separation
as if breaking from the herd
and ignoring the
sheepdog yapping.
I lost sight
and wandered blindly deaf
to any pleas,
then ask you for more,
to be my cover story
accomplice
to late night affairs.

I apologize
for the shrunken sweater
discomfort bred
by my frivolity
skipping through aisles
on rubber-soled ecstasy.

"Because that's what a comic is, ultimately: a collection of pages.  It's not a flatpanel or a touchscreen, even though that's where it might eventually be displayed.  It's a page."

- John Heffernan

Aaaaand...look, distraction!

It looks like we're nearing the end of the month, which means a lot of people who are participating in NaPoWriMo will be done with their challenge to write a poem a day for a month.  I'm really excited to go through everybody's blogs and read what they've come up with, because that'll no doubt give me more ideas for my own poems.  Plus I'm really excited that I'm not the only one out there writing poems daily.  Is that selfish?  Maybe a little bit.

Anyway, Poem-A-Day April has been going really well.  I only fell behind that one weekend when I went to camp, but I caught up pretty quick because it was only a couple poems behind.  As for the zodiac challenge, that I've failed on.  I had every intention of writing them, especially because I have people who were excited to read a couple specific zodiac signs.  I'm really sorry!  I'll probably use the whole zodiac/horoscope thing as inspiration for random poems rather than a month challenge.  And there we go again, learning what challenges work and don't...

Poem-A-Day May promises to be exciting because every month is cause for excitement.  but I'm looking for a challenge.  Something that I can do weekly.  No ideas yet.  I'm thinking back to a couple older challenges, and one of them was to start one poem a week with "Where were you last night?"  That was a really neat concept because I got to play around with different ways of handling that.  Kinda similar to the challenge to write drunken poetry.  So I'm thinking I should find some sort of challenge that will be like that, because it might make me think more.  Or try forms.  Which might break my brain, but who knows, maybe I'd learn something?  Learning is good.

On Monday, I visited the Poetry Foundation downtown.  First off, I took the El into the city and then had to take another line north of the Loop.  Because I had a lot of time on my hands, it didn't ultimately matter, so that adventure was fun.  Except that I thought I could transfer at one stop, and it turns out that you can't, so after getting off the train and making my way onto the street level, I walked a couple blocks to another station where I had learned I could make my transfer.  Luckily it was a nice day.

Once I got to the stop where I needed to be, I went the wrong direction on the street and had to turn around, but I finally got to the building.  [this is where Brianna realizes that she's told this story in a previous blog post, oops?]  Anyway, it was closed until later.  So I went to Starbucks to get a drink.  That's when a woman came up to me and asked, "Did you just try to go to the Poetry Foundation?"  I shuffled my feet a little and said, "Yeah..." She was very nice when she said that they didn't open until 1 PM, and I was bashful about her having witnessed my embarrassing door-pulling from the other side of the gigantic glass windows.

Clutching my iced mocha of joy, I took the El back in the direction I had come from and met up with my friend for lunch.  He bought, because he's a nice person and knows that I'm unemployed.  It was underlined by the fact that he was on his lunch break from his job that he's pretty happy with.  I'm not going to hold that against him because he bought me lunch AND dessert.  Hey, I can't complain about a toffee cookie, that thing was delicious.  Actually, the whole sandwich was delicious.  There was cheese and vegetables and pesto, and yum.  I should have taken a picture that I could post here.  Darn.  Missed opportunity.

Yesterday, I visited my friend who's involved in drag shows.  She was looking for costumes for another show that she's going to do, so we went to a couple costume shops in Boystown and another shop that I shouldn't mention because this should be a family friendly blog, but let's suffice it to say that there was a lot of lace, silk, and rope.  Special rope.  Then we went to get food because Brianna had eaten a pocket of trail mix for lunch (and learned that M&Ms and the letter M are trademarked by Mars, Inc.  Though I feel like the letter M shouldn't be able to be trademarked...that shouldn't be allowed.).  All around it was a really good afternoon and it was really great to see her because I hadn't seen her in person for close to a year.  Craziness.

And then another friend came over and we watched Woman in Black.  It's a miracle I didn't have nightmares, but it was my idea, so...

I really should never complain about having no friends again [Brianna goes back through her post and sees how many times she mentions "my friend."].

And tomorrow, tomorrow I'm going to C2E2 with my friend (aha!) because she's going for her work.  Yeah, her work is paying for her to go to a comic book convention.  I suddenly find myself wanting a job that would do that for me.  That would be really exciting.  Anyway, I'm super excited because I've never been to a comic book convention, and I'm looking forward to shamelessly people-watching.  Because that's what I do.  Should I bring my TARDIS notebook?  Hm, the possibilities...

That's all I really have to say, so that's all, folks!

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."

- Mark Twain

We interrupt the poetry for...a life update!

I promise I wrote a poem today, but I wrote it by hand, and it's a little bad, and a little angsty, and I didn't want to subject anyone to that, so I'm doing a life update for now.  Hooray for life!

Poem-A-Day April is coming along.  Considering it's only the third day, I haven't fallen behind yet.  I'm thinking my first zodiac poem is going to be Virgo, but I think that's just because it was the first sign that came to mind after Cancer (because that's my sign, you horrible depressing people...).

I have two internships.  Both of them are unpaid.  Both of them are with awesome people who I'm excited to learn from.  Internship #2 might have a job opening soon, depending on if the woman I'm working for gives me the nod.  So...maybe I'll have a job.

My parents are going out of town, which means that I get to have the house all to myself and have the crazy party that I've always dreamed of which centers around myself surrounded by candles reading a book.  It's going to be insane.  I might even drink tea.  OH MAN.  In related news, I may starve to death or eat a lot of pizza while they're gone because I maintain that I can't cook, and even if I do, it will never be delicious on purpose.  Though this might be a perfect opportunity to try out some of those recipes I pinned on Pinterest an eternity ago.

It's been a while since I've seen friends, but I'm not getting the weird stir-crazy that I was before.  And I'm realizing that I've been a horrible friend and haven't texted people about hanging out recently...so I guess I should probably do that.  That's a lie, I saw a friend on Sunday, I'm just starving for attention, it seems.

There is a container of cookie dough ice cream in the freezer.  It may disappear very soon.

Dad came home with the revelation that you can do a Masters program that can actually be funded so you're not paying money to study for an advanced degree.  I swear this is information I have graced upon him before, he probably wasn't listening over the sounds of "TUITION" screaming in his ears once I mentioned "school."  This revelation, however, doesn't really have an impact upon me because deadlines for Fall 2013 are passed, presumably, and I'm still not even a little sure of what I would study.

And just thinking about it makes my eyes fill up with tears, though I'm not sure why.

Repeat:  I have no idea what I would study.  So all you people who are asking me, "Why aren't you in grad school?" need to back off before I explode into saline because the answer is, "Because I don't know if I want to be there."

I do, however, feel rotten.  For unknown reasons.  I just feel very very small, and I'm not sure why (sensing a theme?).  I can't even really explain it, because it came on so quickly.  So that's great fun.

This is how I feel, in a nutshell:

"She's like...twelve!"

Whenever I'm talking about someone who's much younger than me, or someone who seems much younger than me, I typically make the observation that "[NAME] can't do that, he's like 12!"  This is a tendency I picked up from a friend of mine because I thought it was hilarious, and it's been stuck in my brain's lexicon ever since then.  I think I was 15 or 16 when I picked this up.  Maybe.

So now that one of my younger cousins (who am I kidding, I only have three) is turning 12 for real, I'm realizing that I really can say what the older old people say when young people walk into the room: "I remember you when you were this big..." and suddenly I feel decades older than I really am.  And I can't even say she's "like 12," because she will actually be that age.  So this weirds out my speaking patterns.

My mom and I were out shopping for birthday presents for this cousin, because that's what you do when you're family members and you're invited to a birthday party, typically you bring presents, and I was thinking.

What did I do for fun when I was 12?

And I realized that I have no idea.

I was in middle school at the time, leaving a handful of my friends behind at the local elementary school so I could go forth with my best friend to this special program through the local high school that would involve white collared shirts, and dark pants/skirts as a dress code and French class.  I was particularly excited about learning French, let me tell you that.  So presumably, I did a lot of homework.

I don't remember hanging out at friends houses very often, and I don't particularly remember what books I was reading at the time, only that I'm sure I was reading things.

And I have no idea if I was writing at that time.  Because I'm fairly certain that there was a time in my life when I took a break from writing.  I just didn't do it.  Like ever.  I don't know if it's because I didn't have the time or the ideas or the inclination to write short stories or what, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't figured out that I could scribble down ideas or whatever randomness I wanted in a notebook and call that "writing."  Yeah, pretty sure I wasn't doing that.

I think I was doing Girl Scouts, because I had joined the local troop when I was 11, and continued on.  And I don't think that this was the time when I called my Girl Scout leader every week to ask if there was a meeting, I think that was in high school.  So 12, I probably remembered when the meetings were, and went to them as well as the camping trips and other fun things.

If I remember correctly, I did the drama club at middle school, but we didn't really do much that year.  When I was 12, we did a lot of improv.  And I wasn't very good at it.  At least, I didn't think I was particularly good at it, but I had fun, so that's all that really mattered anyway, right?

I must have hung out with friends, but considering we were 12, I have no idea what we did.  Pretty sure that would mean I went to their house and we hung out or had a slumber party.  I must have painted my nails a lot.

I seem to remember a long black skirt that I really loved to wear with brightly colored argyle knee socks under it, because this was a way I could wear bright colors and still be in dress code, because no one was looking at anyone's socks.  This is also when I started liking colored/patterned socks, because dress codes suppress pretty colors otherwise.  Though I'm not sure how this paragraph is relevant to what I did as a 12-year old.

I'm going to guess that I spent a lot of time at home reading or watching movies with my family.  I really love movies, and my grandpa has this really great collection that he lets us borrow from, as long as we swear on our lives that we'll bring them back.  They used to be all VHS, but he's since upgraded to DVD.  I wonder if he'll go as far as blu-ray, but I highly doubt it.  This was also an age when Blockbuster was thriving, so I could have gone there as well.

Not really sure, but I've got a couple ideas, I suppose.

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."

- Madeleine L'Engle

Kaleidoscope Heart

I learned recently that one of my readers recently (how many times can I use that word in a sentence...) is an attorney, or at least works at an attorney's office, so their name links back to that website.  You know who you are if you're reading this now!  And I find it interesting that they commented on one of my posts to stress legality and getting everything down in "black and white."  Just wanted to take a moment to thank that commenter, and assure them that my Last Will and Testament post was a draft, I'll be working out the kinks soon, and when I'm closer to my deathbed.

Moving on to today's prompt which I pulled from my box (yes, I'm going to announce that every time I pull a prompt from the box, you'll probably get irritated, but you'll have to either deal with it or...deal with it, thank you!).

Today's prompt:  What music album would be used for a movie about your life?

I was just thinking about this fairly recently (it's that word again...).  I'm actually making a list of all the songs that are out now or that I'm hearing played on the radio right now that apply to my post-graduation "real world" life.  So I've got a couple songs on that list, but it's not a whole album.  One that I'd just like to mention because a friend shared it with me and I feel like it suddenly applies with "22 is like the worst idea that I have ever had..." is Paramore's "Hello Cold World."  It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

What's strange is that there's one album that would be pretty good for a movie about my life right now.  Or at least, how my life is right now, and that's Sara Bareilles' "Kaleidoscope Heart."  I shamelessly borrowed the CD from my local library so I could familiarize myself with the music, because my same friend who sent me Paramore's song also sent me "Uncharted."

There was a good week when I played this song on loop.  It was in December, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life when I got home from Florida.  If there was a movie montage to go with this song in the movie of my life, it would be me puttering around the apartment, playing on my computer, and writing stacks of poetry.  Which is interesting in that that's exactly what I'm doing right now since I've been back from Florida.  But this is how I've found myself approaching my life right now.  It's uncharted.  I'm the one making my decisions and determining my own future, drawing the lines on my own map, and I don't want to listen to other people telling me how "to get started."

Then there's "Gonna Get Over You," which makes me love Sara Bareilles all the more, because the music video is so fun.  I don't really know what to say about this.  I'm not sure it's making a promise that I can keep, but I don't know.  "I'm not the girl I intend to be."  This is something I want to live, I want to be the girl that I do intend to be.  Just...need to figure that one out.

"King of Anything."  The song that I've heard on the radio and sung along with.  This would be perfect for the movie of my life because the movie of my life is going to be a romantic comedy of some sort, and I'm going to sing this to someone in a diner.  At least, that's how I'm imagining it.

I'm not really feeling coherent right now, but my feeling is that this album as a whole pretty accurately paints my life as it is right now.  I'm still figuring things out, feeling like there's potential for everything, and yet having no idea how I'm going to get there.  I feel like I want everything but I don't have enough room in my arms to carry it all to the check-out counter.  So there's a lot of reflection needed, but I'm going to be playing this beauty on loop for the next couple forevers because Sara Bareilles is keeping me sane right now.

"Each day, countin' up the minutes, till I get alone, 'cause I can't stay

in the middle of it all, it's nobody's fault, but I'm

so low, never knew how much I didn't know, 

oh, everything is uncharted.

I know I'm getting nowhere, when I only sit and stare..."

- Sara Bareilles, "Uncharted"

Goodness

Today I pulled a prompt from my magical prompt box, but the first one I pulled was: Name a time when you broke a rule or law.  Did you get caught, or did you get away with it?  I feel like this would be an unwise thing to write about on a blog where the proper authorities could conceivably find me.  So we're not going to do that one.  The short answer for the curious, is yes I have, but get caught, no.  I'd like to keep it that way.  Just ask me, and I'll tell you the story!

Anyway, one more time!

This is my mysterious full of orange slips with prompts on them.  Magical, yes?

Today's prompt:  Name one thing you feel brings out the good in people.

Laughter.  There are a number of different types of laughter, but most importantly is the laughter that actually makes people happy.  I find that happiness and laughter tend to bring out the good in people.  I say this because I enjoy surrounding myself with people who enjoy laughing and who enjoy making other people laugh.  Because laughter is a unifying experience, people tend to be more friendly once they've laughed together.  I remember going to poetry slams on campus and leaving with this warm feeling and being met with smiles from other people because we had shared something, and I feel like that's part of the "good" that comes out in people.  So laughter for one.

I think that also leaks into shared experiences.  Sharing experiences brings out a good toward the people in that specific context, which is good, and sometimes that also extends to good towards outside people.  I'm not sure if that sentence makes any sense, but it made sense in my head, so I'm leaving it.

Kindness.  Being shown it yourself brings out kindness in others in a sort of "pay it forward" type of attitude. Random Acts of Kindness Week is in February, and I've always wanted to do little anonymous random acts of kindness, but I always manage to forget, which probably says a lot about me, but we're not going to go there.

Feeling like someone cares about you.  This always makes me feel like I need to do something for someone else or let that caring person know just how much their care and concern means to me.  Just because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Caffeine.  I'm only kidding.

Love.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."

- Wendy Mass

Weird-o

Source: imgfave.com via Brianna on Pinterest

It's true.  I know quite a few people who appear perfectly sane until you get to know them, and then they reveal their true craziness.  And I don't mean padded walls, strait jacket crazy, although there are some people I know or have met who should probably set themselves up with that scenario, but I mean the type of endearing crazy that all humans have and are so reluctant to share with strangers.

And I wonder the same way that Charlie does in Perks of Being a Wallflower, "Do you ever think, if people knew how crazy you really were that no one would ever talk to you?"  That question in and of itself answers any question that I could ever have about why people hide their crazy.  But at the same time, it's the people who are fearless and who wear their crazy on their arms like expensive tattoos who are the most interesting.  And as I've met more people and learned more about the world (which, admittedly is not a lot, but I get by), I've come to realize that I'd rather talk to interesting people than small talk with monotonous people.  Which sounds like a no-brainer, but sometimes we have revelations that are dumb or that prompt other people to say "duh."

Being a person who wears a shell for the first...I don't know how long amount of time when you first meet me, it's a little difficult to tell how many people I'm friends with who inspire me to be comfortable with my weirdness.  There was one person in particular who I met and spent a lot of time with, and I was frustrated when it was taking me so long to come out of my shell.  It might defeat the purpose of having a shell if you acknowledge it with a text like, "It's just taking me so long to come out of my shell!"  But it was kinda awesome that that person said it'd be worth the wait.  I need more people in my life like that.

I wonder how many people wear shells when they first get to know other people.  I mean, at least half the world is introverted, so is it just them?  Hm.  What can less introverted people do to make introverts more comfortable?

So for now, I need to keep my weirdness in check because I may be comfortable around the new people I'm meeting, but I'm sensing that it's not the same in the opposite direction, and I'm not sure why that is.  Also need to make a note that my sense of humor is weird and I should be more serious.  At least for a little while.  But be warned, the second that comfort level increases, the sarcasm and the ridiculousness will return.  And you'll have to figure out whether I'm joking instead of me telling you every time.  So there.

"We're all a little weird, and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutual weirdness and call it Love."

- Dr. Seuss