Monday, March 30, 2015

Map My Digression

Ella, born with blonde in her hair and a strong jaw, takes the bus to school. 

She walks to the bus stop using her swollen feet, and makes her usual comments about the weather to the benches.  They are typically good listeners, or at least they are polite enough to pretend.  Either way, the sky is purple and she misses her mother because of it.

The bus driver is early, so he takes a few moments to make a phone call.  He's probably calling his girlfriend because he is listening to You Make My Dreams by Hall and Oats on the radio and lets the passengers put their feet on the seats.

A few people get on at the stop next to Walmart.  One woman doesn’t have enough change to ride, and a man with cigar lips behind her lends her a handful of change.  She was short a dime because she decided to buy a snickers bar last minute. 

Ella, afraid of everything and wary of small talk, tenses up when he sits next to her.

A couple gets on at the third stop and their legs twist together like licorice.  Ella, who has never held someone’s hand, looks away uneasily.

The man, calling himself Mr. Brown, tells Ella of a secret, “Once it’s on, you won’t want to turn it off.”

No one gets off the bus at the fifth stop.

Ella, raised by strict parents with good standards, eats an apple.

She runs through her list of chores for the day.  Buy milk, take the Christmas decorations down, read the seventh chapter from the Humanities textbook, clean out the fridge, take a nap.  She thinks about calling her mom.  She decides she’ll do it later in the week.

Mr. Brown gives his seat to a pregnant woman who gets on at the next stop.

Ella, who saves $30 from each of her paychecks but he doesn't know what for, coughs.

A family gets on the bus at the stop by the University, and Ella gets off.

And Mr. Brown waves goodbye, and Ella thinks of her term paper, and the pregnant woman puts her purse on the floor and sighs, and the couple with licorice legs have licorice arms too, and Mr. Brown watches and wishes his wife would talk to him more.

And Ella, born with a weak back and blonde in her hair, goes to school.


Thursday, March 19, 2015

At Least


Back in Utah and single still and curious as ever and unaligned... I've been trying to write for a while now.

What is it this time, you ask?  It's Hunter.  It's Avery Taylor.  It's Jesus.  It's finding Katrina and then saying goodbye to Katrina, and then sitting at home a lot.  It's my new roommates.  It's Brittni having a boyfriend and not wanting to hang out with me all the time like we did in 7th grade, and also me not wanting to hang out all the time like we did in 7th grade.  It's not having any new ideas and being okay with not making movies and no female forum speakers and a lot of people being smarter than me and forgetting who directed Being John Malkovich and looking stupid in front of him for it. 

I've gotten caught up in another high school drama and it makes life all sparkly and exotic and I'm wondering how long it's going to last.  I've almost shed my bumbling and achingly dull 16 year old persona and am embracing being the bumbling and insipid 20 year old that I guess I always knew I was.  Still tripping over my drooping socks and telling my palms not to sweat, but I at least have a bag with foxes on it and that's cool sometimes.  

No, I haven't changed much.  

And yet I'm so different that I don't even know what to say about myself anymore.  I don't recognize myself.  I don't sing very often.  

I do, however, know a lot of fun facts about Disney World, though.  So there's that.

But here's the deal: things are happening in a way that is desirable and confusing and upsetting and HORRIBLE and WONDERFUL and I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING and it feels good to have something so exciting again.  It's glamorous, and we are glamorous, and we are giggly and we are secretive and we are fools for it.  We are damn fools and I'm so incredibly content with it all.  And I weep for the day when it ends, as we all know it will.  

But until then, I am going to let my heart race a little bit and I'm going to be late to class and I'm going to write 17 draft texts before sending the "right" one and I'm going to analyze conversations with Avery and hate myself because it feels good to be passionate and it feels wrong to run away.

I'm done running away from myself.

I guess I don't have much else to say now besides this: I've made a string of good decisions and one bad one and my ligaments are tearing and I'm happy.

At least I have that.