On the Age of Princesses and Pirate Ships

It was like listening to herself babble away in the backseat,

About nothing, and everything.

“Mommy made me wear these to, what is that thing called when

Someone dies? Yeah, a funeral, that’s it.”

I must have said something to that effect ten years ago.

It was like watching herself discover pop music for the first time,

As they listened to Taylor Swift.

“On a bandview in somedale.” “On a balcony in summer air.”

I like this song. God her songs are sad.

“Do you like this song just because it mentions the seven dwarves?”

I didn’t even notice it mentioned the seven dwarves “Yes.”

It was like reliving the innocent days,

As they talked over a cappuccino and a hot chocolate,

About how boys are gross,

Video games and kissing and all that, gross. Yeah…you. just. wait.

She gets home and half expects to see her
eight year old self in the mirror

because she’s been living in a pre-adolescent memory all afternoon.

She thinks back to the movie theater, the blue-raspberry slushie,

To the kids section of the book store,

To the song playing on the radio.

There’s a reason the song goes,

Don’t forget to look before you fall.

Not before you leap, but before you fall.

We’re all bound to. We all jump,

and we all fall. Blame it on gravity,

blame it on fate, or blame it on nothing

and embrace the impact as best you can.
Love the fall, because sometimes it will be all you've got.

Along with some nostalgia and a new-found appreciation

For the wooden toys her mother gave her (her fingers went numb

Trying to fit those silly plastic dolls in their silly rubber clothes.),

That was the take away.

Look before you fall.

She’s practically a grown-up now,

with responsibilities, with worries, with honest desires, with attainable dreams.

She knows that the Elf on the Shelf isn’t magical,

But my God, how she wishes it was.

She knows that childhood lenses shatter somewhere around adolescence,

            And she wishes she could save the young,

            Or at least prepare them for what lies ahead.

She can’t remember the day, month, or even exact year,

            When she made a devastating realization.

The world wasn’t on her side.

            No one could save her from what she’d do to herself.

Her childhood had evaporated.

            Christmas brought sadness, not presents,

            And it’d be that way for a while.

She’s in the middle of childhood naïveté

            And the vast bitterness of adulthood. 

            Neither quite here nor there.

She swears she won’t let the world get to her,

            But fears she’s beaten the world at that race.

But maybe it’s not so bad to see things for what they are--

            To recognize sadness and humor, grief and irony

            To feel disappointment is to appreciate love

            and all the rest of it just a bit more.

Besides, in one way or another, she’s still got parts of that sparkling youth.

She thinks she can do anything.

She thinks the world’s her canvas,

Because up until this point, it has been.

She’s tried and failed and healed and tried again,

And nothing’s ever stopped her.

She prays that it will always be this way,

That she can act with no regrets, forever.

That she can hit the target every shot she takes, forever.

She prays, but she still knows better.

She dreams the same way Children do.

The only difference is that she recognizes

The foolish parts.

She writes them off.

I’ll bounce back.

Or else deal with it when I’m really an adult.

But Children aren’t sophisticated enough to know

that someday the world won't be at their fingertips.

Someday they'll be hit hard, and it'll feel like

a ton of bricks, the weight of the world.

Someday they'll see more clearly, 

and someday they'll be scared of more than

just monsters under the bed.

They can't grasp the concept of growth and change,

And thank God for that.  

 And at her age,

all you have to do is reach out

and touch the world. 

At her age, it's all possible. 

It's all right there.

Photo Credit

2012 Election

This is an official blog entry for the YourLocalSecurity.com Blogging Scholarship. If selected, I'll receive $1000 towards my college expenses in 2012. This scholarship is sponsored by YourLocalSecurity.com

As Obama's presidency comes to a close, citizens across the nation, and around the world, will be carefully observing the 2012 electoral race. Many of the topics that we focused on during the last race will continue to come up, hot topics like health care, gay rights and abortion. We might see that others, like the war on terror, will simmer down, especially with the recent end to the war in Iraq.

The main topic of contention in the upcoming race, however, will have to do with economic policy. With our current national debt at 15 trillion (48,500 per person, according to Brillig.com) it's hard to imagine a bigger problem. But the debt itself isn't the root of it. The poison economic culture in the United States can be seen in a variety of different aspects of American life. The rising rates of obesity, the amount of waste we generate, the social and educational gaps that are apparent across towns and states, all these are products of an unstable economy.

History has shown that money affects culture more than we know. The fluctuating cost of gasoline causes families to reevaluate not just the cars they drive, but the routes they take, the schools they attend and much more. As the price of fresh foods spikes, so do the sales of cheaper meals from fast food restaurants. Poor diets, forced by low-incomes, lead to heart disease, diabetes and other health risks. When companies see drops in dollar signs, an obvious reaction can be to layoff employees, which presses even more stress on families and businesses nationwide. If we want a nation of healthy, happy individuals, we need to fix the economic standing of our entire country.

And so, we need a president who is going to lay out a plan. America needs organization. It needs a dynamic proposition that has one central target (economics), but a multitude of effects (health, environment, crime, family, business). The candidate who brings up convincing and clever solutions to strengthen our brittle economy will win. The individual who looks after the entire nation, and who does not divide us up by class nor region, will have the most success. The United States needs a president who does not see the colors red and blue, but rather someone who recognizes the interconnectedness of our nation. The best candidate will be the one who lays a groundwork for the future by proposing a plan that creates jobs, that invests in green technologies, that supports education, that brings back to life the prospects of an American dream, a dream we can achieve by getting off the couch, by getting our hands dirty, by working our own futures and by extension the future of our entire country. Our next president will realize the power of collaboration and cooperation,

This Day in November

It used to be my least favorite day of the year...the day before school starts up again after the Thanksgiving hiatus. For the past three years, I felt sicker than sick. Worse than the last day of summer vacation, or March vacation, even Christmas vacation. I loathe the next two weeks. They're anything but jolly, and tonight marks the beginning.

I'm not sure why this day, specifically, made me so angry and upset. Could be the impending midterms, but I'm one of those strange kids who actually likes studying for exams. Maybe it was the realization that mashed potatoes couldn't solve all my problems, nor would they be readily available once I got back to school. Maybe it dates back to my days in Farmington, when I didn't want to return to my roommate, my prison sentence at an all-girls academy. But why did that distress transfer? Wasn't I happy to be here, at Hotchkiss?

On this very night last year, I wrote a whole piece trying to talk myself down from the ledge. I was really on edge then. Junior year stress ate away at me like nothing I've ever experienced. I was  convinced that none of this was going anywhere. I droned on and on about how I wanted a real life, and how school somehow wasn't real life, (which I suppose I still don't believe it is).

Reading back through this piece is quite depressing. My whole schedule sits typed out. My whole existence put into a list of items, separated by semi-colons. I wanted so much more than a list of courses and grades, and yet I surrendered to timetables and sleepless nights. I was back to lists and count-downs, something I hadn't made since Farmington. I scheduled out every minute of every day, and it was only then that I could swallow easily and manage my stress. I vividly remember sitting in my room last year, my head face-planted into my desk, probably on a stack of note cards, just wondering how I would find the energy to move. I wanted to run, duck, hide, cry. Looking back, I probably did cry. Went to bed at a friend's house and woke up at 5:30 to go to the gym. Sprinted out my [depression, stress, disgust for the end of Thanksgiving break?] before the sun rose, and got on with my  least favorite day of the year.

Parts of me are sad looking back at this. I shouldn't have tortured myself like I did. I should have watched more sit-coms. I should have eaten more chocolate. I should have done something to sedate that miserable person inside. But that misery is in the past. I may still be a bit obsessive compulsive, a bit neurotic, but I'm not dreading tomorrow as I once did. My room's clean, my tea's hot, my college apps are in, and there's not much left on my plate. I can focus on whatever I want from this point forward. The next two weeks are important; they're still a sprint I have to partake in. But the despondency's gone, which should make this race a bit easier to take.

Creme Brulee Finger & Stupidity

        Had a minor finger surgery today. They pumped a ton of anesthetics into my middle finger, and removed some strange foreign object that I don't remember ever entering my poor hand. The doctor used some strange fire-related tool to "seal up the wound." The process reminded me of creme brulee, although not as appetizing.

 

        As I was driving home, I ended up behind this tiny, beat up automobile with all of these heinous, right-wing bumper stickers. Now, I can try to understand Republicans and hear them out if they present their ideals sanely. What I don't understand is stupidity. One of this woman's stickers read "When Liberals ask you for change, say you don't have any." Tell me how this is cooperative, kind, or hopeful. When I read that, I felt sorry for her. All I could think was Wow, you really have no sense of spirit, and no desire to help bring about change.  

        I'm not a fan of party politics. I don't think having a wing-system brings us any closer to accomplishments, because the game of politics itself detracts from the issues we face as a nation. When we all sit around and complain about the administration, or slap meaningless stickers on our bumpers, we simply feed the problem and make it larger. The only way to make things better is by finding representatives who will act instead of speak, who will go out in do instead of dwell on mistakes.

Blog Title Irony

There's a depressing irony in the fact that I named this blog Little Miss Muffins. I recently went gluten-free, and it is one of the hardest diets to stick to! Wheat products are in basically everything. I read something that said even some toothpastes are bad for celiacs. 

TOOTHPASTE SHOULD NOT HAVE GLUTEN! 

Anyway, now I guess I need to find some gluten-free muffin recipes to try out. That should be...fun. 

I have no idea why the little wheat stalk below looks so happy. I'd be happier with a bagel, instead of eating rice, and reindeer food as my friend described it (carrots and celery).

Found this guy on thesmartkitchenblog.com

 

 

On the improbability of changing others

You laugh until you cry,

You cry until you laugh,

Everyone must breath

Until their dying breath. ~ Regina Spektor

Oxygen to the blood, body and brain is essential to life. I could get scientific and state the reasons for this, but I passed AP Bio and would like to go down a different road right now.

            You can’t change people unless they’re willing to be changed by you. I try to fight this; I try to justify actions and analyze conversations, tendencies, and emotions. I break them down as if they are scientific notations that could be re-written in a way that can be understood. In fact, most things can be boiled down, condensed, picked apart to tidbits. But, they become indistinguishable pieces of a greater idea, and these tidbits rarely represent the person as a whole, a disintegration which renders the whole process useless.   

            I’ve attempted to change the way people are or how they act or simply how I view them. It always fails. In the end, we control our own breathing. We only have power over ourselves. My telling my mother to not eat a dozen Oreos for lunch will not deter her, but rather make her angry. Debate, as much as I love it, rarely succeeds in convincing one opponent to change his position; it only provokes argument. Thinking that the person whom your heart vacantly aches for will wake up one day and realize he’s wrong will probably leave you pretty lonely. Some parts of life aren’t worth meddling with, and so we musn’t try to get involved past the points where we’ve been welcomed. Like the human instinct to breathe, some things cannot be changed until death.  

Post inspired by this Regina Spektor song. I like it, for the most part...except for the part about November Rain, for reasons left unexplained.