New Year's Resolutions

Rewind to four years ago: One of my best friends asks me what my New Year's resolutions are.

I, being mouthy, respond that I don't BELIEVE in New Year's resolutions. I believe that people should change things THE VERY SECOND that they decide they want to change them.

Okay, seventeen-year-old self, please calm down.

Here are the New Year's resolutions that I'm not to embarrassed to admit to:

- Laugh more.
- Sleep more.
- Write more, more often, and more honestly.
- Start running again so that I don't get lazy and stressed out.
- Spend my free time with people who put my heart at peace.
- Focus on my classes. Do all of my reading.
- Live in the moment.
- Stop running my mouth so much.
- Be better about returning phone calls.
- Don't leave my computer running all the time, because that's bad for the planet and I love Mother Earth.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Done!!! (for now)

Air smelled sweeter on Friday afternoons in high school when I would rush towards my Jeep, roll down the windows, crank up the radio, and speed down the Boulevard to a lazy weekend.

I don't think that there's any better feeling than being DONE. I would feel pretentious if I called this a sense of accomplishment, because it's really just a sense of joy that I don't have to do ANYTHING for the next month. I don't have to study, don't have to worry, don't have to think about any sort of career.

I am officially finished with my first semester of nursing school. I am one-quarter of the way done with my program and a year and a half from graduation.

Hey California, I'll be seeing you real soon.

I have a cold. I am useless. All I want to do is lay in bed and whine about how my body is achy and I can't breathe. I spent all afternoon yesterday watching documentaries and being a big baby. I could perform in a musical with the stomach flu and I would probably try to dance on a broken leg, but having a cold absolutely kills me. But today is Friday and as soon as class is over, I plan on spending all weekend on the couch, rotting my brain and drinking orange juice.

Here is something that I think is cool. Alicia, you'll probably like it.

I drive too fast. I'm going to blame it on growing up in California. Sadly, the great state of Texas does not appreciate my efficiency.

I am not ready for Christmas music yet. I know that it's winter because it's dark and cold when I wake up in the morning, but it doesn't seem like Christmas yet. I do not like radio stations that play nonstop Christmas music and if I hear "So This is Christmas" one more time, I'm going to go crazy.

I really appreciate the people in my life who make me feel extraordinary. I was lucky enough to spend some time with one of those people yesterday. Thank you.

Six months ago, I had just returned home from France. Now, I'm a quarter of the way done with nursing school. Where does the time GO?

Ten days until I'm back in California!

Picture Frame

When some people are sad, they drink. Or they cry. Or they exercise. Or they argue with their loved ones. Or they find some fairytale to take them away from it all. God knows I've done all of those things, but mostly, I write.

I sometimes wonder if other people's brains work the same way mine does. I don't mean to say that I'm more intelligent or more interesting, because I'm probably not. But my brain is constantly making up stories. My body will be in Pharmacology, but in my mind, I've just met Leonardo DiCaprio and he's telling me how he never realized how wrong Bar Rafaeli was for him until he met me. Or I'm a spy sneaking into a Middle Eastern country with a fake passport and an authentic ability to speak Arabic. Or some other fantasy that is just outside my reach.

I could tell the actual story, all facts and no lies, but that's not the way I see it in my head. I'll start with the truth and add some accessories.

In the way that things should be, we're both in phone booths. Phone booths are best for conversations like these. I am walking home from class in a skirt and sensible shoes, and the sun is shining. I can't stop smiling. You are on your way home from work. It's raining and you're in a black suit with a matching hat. You rush into the booth, shaking out your umbrella. There is an eight hour difference in our days and this is the time that works best for us to speak.

In the real version, I'm curled up with a book in a hot pink chair, sloppily dressed in jeans and a university t-shirt. I'm sure that you're in your room wearing those old track pants, smoking cigarettes, one after another, getting ready for bed. You call me on a whim, because you haven't heard my voice in nearly six months.

Cell phones and casual dress take all the poetry out of this story.

Here is the part that is true:

We each knew that this call would happen someday, but neither of us was looking forward to it. I knew exactly how it would feel, the knife sinking into the heart, all the way to the handle. I knew that it would leave a dull, steady ache in the chest of whomever it rested.

Your voice is thin and faraway on the telephone line as I imagine it traveling from your mouth into the phone lines which rest on the floor of the Atlantic until it reaches New York and connects with the country I call home. Even in that great distance, I can hear you searching for a casual way to tell me, hoping that the words won't shoot from your lips too carelessly. I will myself not to make a sound as your confession reaches my ears. I make a joke, remembering to smile so that the sound of that first tear rolling down my cheek is inaudible.

It hurts too much to speak English, so I switch to a neutral language, one that we each learned as adolescents. I feel that it is only fair for both of us to be at a linguistic disadvantage. It feels safer that way.

I ask if she's pretty and "Not as pretty as me" is your smug reply. My laugh is hollow and insincere as I tell you that I'm glad to see you haven't lost your sense of narcissism.

And just like that, it's over. You've fulfilled the agreement that we had and there's nothing left. You tell me "Bon courage" because "Gros bisous" is too intimate for us now and I wish you the same.

And it's not that I loved you because there wasn't much of my heart left to give but I just wanted to keep everything that we shared in a picture frame so that no one else could touch it and there was always the possibility that we could go back to it someday. From the moment we parted ways, we knew that someone would walk by and carelessly push the frame from that table, causing it to shatter as it fell to the ground.

This is the conte de fee that I promised I would write about you.

Not that I'm counting, but...

Things I Am Looking Forward to Doing in Twenty-Five Days:
- Seeing my mommy and my daddy and my brother
- Wearing my new winter coat and reuniting with my orange coat. I gave it a break after wearing it for 6 months straight in France. I think it's about time to bring it back.
- Wasting my days away in my mom's kitchen, trying out the recipes I've been saving all semester
- Spending way too much time with Netflix documentaries
- Staying out late with the people who were eyewitnesses to most of the embarrassing moments in my adolescence
- Sleeping in! (And sleeping in something that is not a twin bed)
- Houses full of relatives, food, crying babies, winter sweaters, running kids, and loud laughter
- Playing piano to my little heart's content



For the first time in my entire life, I won't be going home for Thanksgiving. No staying up until the early morning making pies. No pumpkin pie for breakfast while sitting in my pajamas and watching the Macy's Day Parade. No eating too much turkey and partnering with my seventeen-year-old cousin to try to convince our baby cousin that "big girls take naps", which leads to all of us falling asleep in a full bed until someone comes to wake us up and tell us that they're getting ready to eat pie. I'm excited to have a new, exciting Thanksgiving experience, but I love spending Thanksgiving with my family. I wish I could be in both places at once.

I bought a pumpkin pie at Trader Joe's two nights ago and there are only two slices left. It was really delicious. Sorry, Mom. You've got competition.



Little-known and completely random fact: I have a breakup playlist. It's called "Awesome Breakup". I'm not dating anyone right now, but a girl's got to be ready for whatever life throws at her. Anyway, I update it on a fairly regular basis. However, I've discovered something even better. Consider this a breakup song-and-dance, appropriate for any breakup, dedicated to no man in particular.

Desires

I want to go to Juarez and stand against those who would hurt young women who look exactly like me.

I want to start wishing on stars again.

I want to find a job that I love.

I want to be near my family.

I want to wear more dresses.

I want to be brave enough to say what I think and kind enough to consider the feelings of others.

I want to make the people who matter proud of me.

I want to stop saying "Oh, what the hell..." and getting myself into ridiculous situations, but I can't even imagine the great stories I would lose by doing that.

I want to dance more.

I want to wake up earlier, so that I'm not always rushing.

I want to go places I've never been and do things I've never done.

I want to train my dog.

I want to finish knitting a sweater. Or a blanket. Or anything bigger than a purse.

I want to find a new church.

I want to live in my own big-girl apartment.

I want to waste afternoons climbing trees.

I want to grow a pumpkin.

I want to learn how to give IVs.

I want to live above a bookstore. Or a bakery. Or a hardware store. I'm not all that picky.

I want to eat foods worth eating.

I want to finally learn how to play the guitar. For real, please.

I want to remember what it feels like to believe in magic.





And here is a song that makes me smile. I hope it makes you smile.

Pilgrimage to Mraz

I have been to California three times this semester. Driven between Phoenix and Los Angeles six times in the past four months. It's my favorite state and one of my favorite places in the whole world.

For Halloween, I was able to take a last-minute trip to Westwood with my best friend/ex-roommate/wifey to see Jason Mraz and to stay with my two best friends from high school.



This is kind of how it went:


Listening to Jason Mraz for well over six hours, windows down, sunglasses on.

Feeling that the Pacific was near, even though we couldn't see it. Smells of the coastline and gasoline and the foods that I grew up with.

Seeing Nicole's Westwood townhouse for the first time and rushing to get our costumes together.

High school best friends wondering who let us grow up and get so old so quickly.

Amy Winehouse running around Westwood with a vampiress and a toilet.

Seeing high school classmates. Laughter and hugs and ridiculous statements.

Saturday was, without a doubt, the best day of my life. That sounds trite, I know, but it was one of those perfect, laid-back, full-of-adventure days that I wish could last for weeks. Mariam and I decided to hit up Hollywood Boulevard, never dreaming that we would need jackets. It poured and our jeans were soaked to the knees as we rushed over Walk of Fame stars in search of an umbrella.


We finally found one in a corner drugstore, where the owner gave us Halloween candy. We stopped at Cafe Audrey for paninis. We wasted the afternoon at Sephora. And then we went to the concert.

Please let me stop and gush about Jason Mraz. Jason Mraz was the soundtrack to my first San Francisco roadtrip at age sixteen. One of the few CDs I had left in my Jeep after my CD case was stolen during my senior year in high school. He sang me lullabies during my dorm days of college. And I was silly enough not to go to one of his shows in Tempe on an idle Tuesday during my first year of college, because "Oh, he'll go on tour again next year."

That was THREE years ago.

I was fiercely anticipating this concert. Mariam and I fought tooth and nail for two tickets, any two tickets, and ended up with PIT SEATS. We worried that they wouldn't arrive in sufficient time to allow us to drive to California. We crawled across the desert to see this show.

The joy of legitimately having concert tickets and pit wristbands was almost too much to handle.




This is kind of what you would have seen if you had been there:

I think that Jason Mraz is incredibly talented and it was a lovely way to pass an evening in California. I am a girl of too many words but I can't find quite the right one to describe how talented I think Jason Mraz is. It was a beautiful night.

Side note: One of Jason Mraz's opening acts was a British band called Two Spot Gobi who look like a bunch of guys that would hang out with my brother. They are phenomenal. The kind of music I would put on repeat and blast as I drive around during the afternoons at home. They have this very harmonic reggae/folk/ska sound. Also, they don't have keyboards and it doesn't sound empty. I'm sold. I came home and bought all of their music, which is a huge sacrifice, because I never buy music (I am always, always, always illegally downloading music; RIAA's enemy number one right here). But these guys are worth spending money on. Mariam and I got a chance to talk to them after the show and they're great.




Things I've Decided:
- I want to play more music with more strangers.
- It's going to be very difficult to convince me that I want to live anywhere other than California when I grow up.
- If at all possible, when I grow up, I'm going to sell my car.
- California has a much higher percentage of beautiful, friendly, fascinating people.