Flashback to reality!

Stupid water. Stupid water. Stupid water.

That’s what my brain tells me as I slap the water helplessly. Somehow, the helpless slapping is keeping my in first place during the practice.

Stupid coaches. Stupid henry. Stupid water. Stupid rutabaga. Stupid chanting.

And in the end, it doesn’t really matter how stupid the water is, because I’m still the one who goes back the next day and does it all again anyway.

Various photos from Recently/ JKMF

Airplane refueling over our house... it looks pretty strange.

Henry fell in the pool... but we rescued him!

Somewhere over the rainbow... is a bunch of ugly clouds.

Someone ripped the sky.

Off the road to Joyce Kilmer... this is why I like side roads.

Yes, the water is that color. (I think this is Chilhowee Lake?)

I think this is some sort of old something for one of the dams. I wish I could get in that building.

Before we got to the Poplar Trail...

One of the smaller trees on the Poplar Trail.

Looking up.

Out the car window on Cherohala Skyway

Finally.

I’m finally getting to go to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.

Finally.

You know, it may not seem like much– a bunch of old trees– but one of my favorite pictures that no one gets to see is one of me at 6 months, hanging in my dad’s backpack, pointing at a giant poplar with the most excited and amazed face, just screaming look how big!

And another good picture is a candid one of my mother standing in front of a tree just looking straight up. I don’t know why, but it just seems so incredibly innocent. It’s just a… cool (for lack of better words) thing.

Some things are too precious to be uploaded and digitalized. That’s why I don’t have pictures.

Lightning. Strikes. Again. Eek.

It’s one in the morning. I can’t sleep; I’m distacted by the CONSTANT bliding light from my window. In the distance, over our ridge, there is such a violent lightning storm that I can see it from miles away. And it’s so bright… I’ve been having horrid nightmares about lightning. If I had my camera with me on a 2 second exposure, I would have lightning in every picture, with no exaggeration. I’m mortified. Getting struck by lightning in dreams (and if your dreams are like mine, you feel EVERYTHING. I can wake myself up in a dream because I can to an extent control them, but if I cant tell when it’s coming… not so much.)

Still mortified. Eep.

Oh, and I just looked up the lightning strike radar for the area. It’s bad. I was counting the flashes with the lovely clock on my computer, and it was 21 strikes in a minute. Do your math. That’s flipping scary.

Snippet #5

Mammaw cradled the manila envelope, addressed to her in clumsy handwriting.

“He sent me these pictures of my daddy,” she explained. Her father? My mind flashed back to memories of the house, a cat, a candle, flames, the floral rocking chair and then finally to the pink chair which I so deeply abhored throughout my childhood. Mammaw Cindy, old and grey, the only great grandmother I ever knew. And how I never gave thought to the fact that she had had a husband. From my scarce memories, I can only see images and the ghostly bluish visitor that visited me.

“How old are these?” My mother asked. Of course, Mammaw is not my biological grandmother. My true grandmother passed young, leaving my mother a 13-year-old emotionally shattered. Mammaw, unlike the 2nd wife who goes unspoken of, is the closest thing mom has to a mother.

“I’m not exactly sure… but here’s one of daddy and his first wife.” Mammaw carefully pulled the old, beat up picture out of the envelope. A man with an old fashioned hairstyle in overalls was standing beside his small wife. The wife, whom I had no idea existed, was dressed in a 1920’s style dress. “He was about 36 here, and she was about 13 or 14.”

“Wow. That’s incredible,” Mom replied. But, you must understand: we are talking about deep Appalachia. Anything went.

“Don’t you know it? Looking back, it’s a crazy thought,” she shook her head. I followed her hand with my eyes as she set the photo down. On the table, I had failed to notice other pictures. Her wrinkled fingers slid to the next photo. “And this ‘un here is one of daddy and a bottle of moonshine!” She chuckled. Mom smiled. On to the next picture.

“This one is my favorite. This is daddy and two of the dogs, and little Carlissa snuck in the picture and squatted down beside one of the dogs. Doesn’t she look a lot like Cami?”

“They look identical!”

The less interesting conversation lost my attention.

I looked back down at the last photo. It was a photo of an old man, sitting on a couch with a giant Holy Bible and looking rather dissatisfied with the photographer. The date on the side, in the same font as my mother’s childhood photographs, was March 1956. I wondered when he died, as I had never heard of his life nor his death. Perhaps we’ll find out in next week’s visit.

C’est la vie.

You know something? Every moment in my life can perfectly be described by a song. This is semi-pathetic– pathetic in the sense that it limits me to being human, but only semi-pathetic because I can never feel truly alone. As long as my ipod lives. It’s not so deep when you’re talking to your friend about the lot lizard you saw earlier and “Norweigian Wood” comes on, but when “Across the Universe” comes on after you find that a relative has brain cancer and another is gone, it starts to get to you.

I am starting to find myself regretting letting myself become pensive. So, for those of you that may or may not be here for an update on reality: I’m alive and kicking. Well, perhaps not kicking, but I’m here. Existing…. yep, that’s the word I was looking for. My family recently made the purchase of a nautical behemoth (or boat, speaking normally. I don’t feel like speaking normally today.). That proves my mastery of manipulation, so I’m not exactly sure what to do with myself now that I accomplished my unwritten test. I’ve just been hanging out with friends, listening to music (obviously. Back in black by Amy Winehouse is on. Love her.) , swimming, obsessing, and Wikipedia-ing various information. On the Wikipedia-ing… is that even a verb? But I’ve been looking up depths of lakes, mainly in Asia and my home state here. And Washington. Lake Crescent, the most beautiful lake in the contenintal United States, is about 630 feet at its deepest point, has an average depth of 300 feet, and was formed 8,000 years ago by a landslide.

I miss winter and fall, even though I love summer and all. My birthday’s coming up mid-July, but I’m not going to have a party or get and presents since I’ve sacrificed that for my global exploration. Let’s enjoy a picture of Lake Crescent now. (Fun fact: Essence was the winning word of the 5th grade spelling bee, and I got out on malignant that year, mainly due to our principal’s overly verbose definition.)

Boo.

Turns out it’s not different at all! I lasted a whole… 9 days. In-cred-i-ble.

On to better topics!

If I’m being quite honest, I think I can confess more here than I can to my journal. Isn’t that strange? Very backwards. But the innermost workings of my mind stay hidden, because I have no trust for anything. It’s better that way. Also, my hand does get tired with my cursive rule:

It is written in cursive or it gets ripped out.

This is sort of like the line “it puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again!”. Sorta. I word it as such. What things do I have to write down nowadays, you may ask. Things regarding my new love for swimming and water, P & K, how I love ampersands, stormy weather, piano, the Atlanta day trips, and of course the random events that make up my life (ie cabithia trips, ihop in the late hours of the night, everyday struggles with typical things and change).

Also, no whippoorwills. And no abandoned house parties. And the evergrowing mystery that is dream life (no pun intended if you’re there, pw… I have some things to tell you. Of importance and gutters.)

One more thing: I just thought you might find the fact that the clock in the kitchen now reads incorrectly due to lightning that hit our transformer. Pictures later, of the time 9:99 1:E1

Sleepy time!

One year anniversary. Wooo. June 9th, 2008 was the day I moved to this place on the internet… might as well leave it 3 days and a whole year later. I might come back sometime… I’m kinda bored.

I know I always say that but…

I think it might be different this time.

Birthdays with the Browns…

Since I still do not have much of anything to write about nor the motivation to write about having nothing to write about, let’s just have a picture post. Hoorah. First note: all of these were taken at the house of people that I fortunately am not related by blood to. They were a wee bit peculiar, if I do say so myself. I guess I’ll write about that later. Second note: needless to say they aren’t edited.

She had the cutest little nose, didn't she?

Look at those eyes... that's green if I ever saw it. I also got some shadow and stuff... don't know if that's good or bad. I liked it.

And this was mishievous little Finnigan, the anorexic beagle. But for an anorexic dog... he sure did try to steal my food a lot.

Again,, my pale little wrist was attempting to pet her so she would stay still, but she ended up following me for it.

Yeah… I would post more but I find the animals cuter subjects then the quite bizarre tchotchkes that adorn their household/alien base. Seriously. They have a giant home-made version of Alien Operation in their living room, directly under a small candle chandelier, complete with functioning rope (reminds me of Phantom of the opera a little). Enough said.

Fast approaching is my birthday. Wow. Never thought I’d phrase it quite that way, but it is what it is. 15. I can’t really believe it. 15 rounds up to 20, and twenty is closer to 30 than to 0 and 30 is closer to 50 than 0 and 50 rounds to 100. Do you see how easy that makes it to feel old? 15 was the age, as a child, I considered a teenager. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Heaven forbid being 20.

This thing– aging– is not something I enjoy.  Speaking of getting older, I’m not going to decide what I want for my birthday. I don’t get anything; I sacrificed it for a trip to Europe (which is well worth it).

But, deep inside… I do have my birthday wishes.

One: a letter. A hand-written letter, and perhaps not one addressed to me… just something to make me think that people still value things of the past. And keep them.

Two: A new purse. Because I’m only human.

Three: A respect for people I dislike. I mean, I should respect people who give me a reason to hate them. That takes some skill.

Four: A beatles album… Rubber Soul. And all the songs on youtube that aren’t available to itunes.

Five: Subscriptions to National Geographic, Time and Newsweek. And the Sunday paper, for my inner crossword lover.

Yeah… but that’s about it. but if I had unlimited cash, I’d buy that 2,000 dollar 14mm nikkor lens I admire from afar.