....

Your memory is a lipstick stain on a white napkin covered in bleach, like the smiles that win hearts, the smile that won mine. 

And I can't forget. Every time I see that picture on the wall. But it's okay now I guess. Time blurs confusion till confusion runs clear and mascara dolls' eyes are the only thing left. 

That's right, I wrote a book.... I know it's hard to believe.

Been writing a lot but not posting for a while. I've been doing a lot of "real" writing aka pen and paper and I'm just way too lazy to transfer all that back to my blog. Sorry. I know that rivers of tears must be streaming down your face at this moment as you try to overcome your overwhelming disappointment. Excuse me while I go sleep. 

Well now I'm in the writing mood. Looks like I will keep going. I'm sure I'll find some fascinating ways to entertain you if I try. Let me see...

Summer goes by too fast. And it seems to go even faster when you have to go to camp that you are dreading and take the SAT and get your wisdom teeth out. On the bright side my mom is buying me movies, although I won't have them at camp or the SAT.... so I guess you could say that the movie thing softens the blow of the wisdom teeth but not much else. 
Well. Now I don't seem to have anything to say. I bet that seems fast to you. Because you see, you at home reading this, cannot see that I have been sitting staring at my screen for a few minutes. Maybe I'll go back an add that in. 


Summer goes by too fast. And it seems to go even faster when you have to go to camp that you are dreading and take the SAT and get your wisdom teeth out. On the bright side my mom is buying me movies, although I won't have them at camp or the SAT.... so I guess you could say that the movie thing softens the blow of the wisdom teeth but not much else. 

* sits staring at screen for some time. 

Well. Now I don't seem to have anything to say. (There, that's better.) Have you seen The Jungle Book? Bear Necessities. You're welcome. Enjoy having that song stuck in your head for the rest of eternity. K bye.  

Whenever I say "K bye" I inevitably think of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ceRtrYqfwg

Okay I'm really done now. 

7.16.2013

“What’ll it be?” The bartender leaned over the counter to take her order. She considered for a moment, looking reluctant. Finally she replied, flushing pink.

 “Have any milk?”

The young man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Milk?” He laughed.

She sighed and smiled. “I know it sounds odd, but it’s really the only thing I want right now.”

Grinning, he replied, “Well, I’ll check; I guess you never know, I might have a carton or two in the fridge.” As he rummaged through the contents of the refrigerator, she stared out towards the terminal. Through giant windows, planes sailed up and down the runways scattering off to every corner of the world. Her eyes were alight with wondering as she studied a particular group of people. Where were they headed? The bartender cut into her daydreams as he returned with a small carton of milk in his hand. “Chocolate alright?” He asked.

“Even better.” She said. He pulled a champagne glass from the behind the counter and filled it halfway. She laughed as he swirled the chocolate milk around in the glass before surrendering it to her.

“So, Miss Chocolate Milk, where you headed?”

“Do you always name your customers after their drinks?”

“Eh, it’s a habit I guess. You didn’t answer the question.” He grinned.

“Home.” She replied softly, sipping the creamy liquid.

“And where’s that?” He persisted. She took a long swallow of chocolate milk and gazed thoughtfully out towards the large windows again.

“It’s across the river, about thirty-five minutes from here; the perfect little house in the perfect little neighborhood in the perfect little city. I’m so close to home.” She took another drink.

“And yet here you are.” He said. She smiled wistfully and looked back at him.

“Yes,” A soft sigh escaped her lips. “Here I am.”

Bittersweet summertime...

Sigh
Sweet summertime 
Bitter tinged like a tan gone wrong
Sunburns and sour snow-cones
Just gotta live with it sometimes
Look around 
Life seems like a fairground 
Some people ride the coasters 
And some rake up the piggy-pens 
That's just the way it goes 
I 'spose 
We've all got those piggy-pen days
And I guess all there is to do is hold your nose and paste a smile on your face :)

Meh.

I wake up, and feel the shock of realization hit me like a brick wall. It was a dream. At first I feel hope leap up inside me, as I wonder: was it all a dream? 
But then the dark world settles into focus and I glance around. I'm still here. The campfire is down to nothing but embers and the waves are slippetty-sliding up on the sand with noises like whispers. The solitude is like a black blanket, oppressive and heavy. 
I think back on the dream and wonder why I was running away from the lights and the shouts of people searching for me. After all, such a situation is all I've been hoping for for eight days. But it's not here yet. In the dream, I jumped, but in reality, I'm still just the ghost of a plane passenger. To the world, the real search party, I'm already dead. 

Jump

I don't know what I'm doing, or where I'm going. I'm running, but I'm running blind, and the whole world feels like it's constantly growing bigger---a thousand times bigger every second. I've never been so scared in my whole life. They're chasing me, but that doesn't scare me so much as what's ahead. It's a drop. Straight and definite. No matter what I do, I can't avoid it, because they're behind me, and there's no alternate road, at least, not one I'm willing to take. I'm trapped. 

Breathing hard, I look around. The path curves and winds and there's no way out. I skid to a halt as the earth falls away in front of me, cascading downward, always downward, into a blackness I cannot even define. The edge is abrupt. It's a cliff, straight down into the unknown, and it extends for miles in each direction. I see lights flashing through the sinewy figures of looming trees, searching and probing. Shouts from the search party echo softly, growing louder as the lights guide them towards me. The shadows are wraith-like ghosts. I feel panic tearing at my heart, and the fear is so real that my body goes rigid. In a moment I won't even be able to scream. They're coming. 

They're coming and there's only one way to escape. 
I jump. 

Bluuuuurb de blurb blurb

To my horror, I felt heat and color rise into my face. As a rule, I didn't blush. Ever. Yet there I was, grinning like an idiot and trying not to show it, with a pink face and burning ears, just because he smiled at me. I pulled my book bag up off of the floor and turned away, with my eyes riveted to the floor, anxious to escape my own nerves and clumsiness. I'd never felt something so awful and wonderful all at once. As I fled, I found myself glancing over my shoulder, but he seemed to have already forgotten me. 

I felt a twinge of sadness at first, but then shrugged it off. After all, an insect easily caught, is soon discarded with boredom in the spider's web. I did enjoy a challenge, though I didn't yet know it. 

A Pretty Big Day

Well today was the day. For the past 360something days I've been waiting. And today it happened. 

At this point you're probably thinking that this is something pretty big. I'm not gonna lie, this was huge for me. I mean, this was really, really, really huge. It's like,  a new chapter in my life has begun. I was all alone in the house, just waiting for my family to get home from Costco, and all of a sudden... boom. It happened. I couldn't believe it. It was just like any other day up to that point, when suddenly there I was, with this huge colossal achievement blooming like a thousand daisies in a green field all around me. 
I almost shed tears of joy. 
I instantly confided my success to my dear friend Cassie, who looked at me with patronizing boredom. She also looked a little annoyed;Cassie, being like most of my furry friends, thinks I'm not quite right in the head (well she's the one who barks at the pencil sharpener!) and she didn't appreciate my success as much as I would have liked. No matter. It was a tremendous moment of joyful triumph. I felt like Frodo waking up in Minias Tirith after destroying the Ring. My life was made brighter. 



After nearly a year of failures, I hit the high note in Phantom of the Opera. 

Yep. I told you this was huge. Year-long dream realized. Mission. Accomplished. 




On another note (lol pun intended) I went to a beautiful wedding this evening. If there's one thing that makes me happy and sad and anxious and hopeful and resentful and delighted and tired and excited and blessed and thankful all at once, it's a wedding. 
The setting was perfect and there was lots of laughing. Plus, there were sparklers. And who doesn't love sparklers? 

Well that's all for now. Goodnight. 
Sleep tight. 

I hope someday you'll see the light. 

7.6.13.

Well I'm taking a breather from my story. Feeling too melancholy tonight to write much. Just... life is starting to feel long and lonely. I miss the feeling of being excited about something. Maybe it's just me, but I'm starting to feel as if I'm Mr. Incredible trying to stop the train that is rapidly approaching a break in the tracks caused by a bad guy's bomb. 

The Butterfly Song

Blinded by tears, I sprang to my feet without even fully knowing why, and ran to the spot where the girl lay on the grass, both of her hands clenching her side. I crouched low, hearing the shouts of a SWAT team as the sounds of sirens screeched in the distance. A few more shots broke through the air and people screamed. Somewhere a radio was still blaring a country tune. I bent low over the girl. Her eyes were glassy and her pretty face was splattered with blood.

“Hey, hey, wake up.” I patted her cheek and gave it a hard smack when the patting didn’t cut it anymore. “Come on, come on.” Her eyes focused and she looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back, trying to appear calm. But my heart was thumping like a battering ram inside my chest. “Hey, can you tell me your name?” I felt for a pulse and found that her heart was beating rapidly but faintly. Her wrist was tiny, and her tan skin shimmered with sweat. I pressed my hand against her wound, reaching instinctively for a forgotten bottle of water that lay on the grass.

She murmured her name faintly, still smiling. I thought maybe the smile should have freaked me out but it didn’t. I relaxed a bit, now that I was helping someone. Helping people always made me relax. I forgot her name as soon as she said it, but at least she was talking. The longer she talked, the longer she’d stay conscious, and alive.

“Well I’m going to help you until the medics get here ok?” She nodded shakily. I ripped off a corner of my Old Navy t and poured the water on it, smothering the bleeding with the coldish cloth.

I glanced back at her face and saw that her vision was fading away again. Her eyes were large and green and dilated. “Hey, try to stay awake, ok?” She nodded. I tore through my thoughts desperately trying to think of some way to keep her conscious. “Um, what’s your favorite movie?” I forced myself to lift her shirt a bit where the bullet had penetrated the skin. I tried not to throw up. At the pool where I was a life-guard the worst thing that had happened was a kid breaking his arm. Sure, you got trained for heavy duty stuff in a class, but no class can prepare you for the sight of a bucket of blood spilling out of a girl’s side. I gulped.

“Impossible to pick,” She said. I’d forgotten what I asked her. Oh, the movie thing.

“Well, top two then.”

“Probably Lord of the Rings and Casablanca.”

“Ah, so you’re a sucker for the classics.”

She laughed, but went breathless with the shock of pain. Her face, tanned and sprinkled with freckles, paled and the smiled fell away for the first time.

I grimaced and glanced around. Obviously something had changed. About a thousand police cars hovered in the distance, and people everywhere were on cell phones, crying and searching frantically. A crowd had gathered in a circle around me and the girl. They were watching nervously with anxious faces and wringing hands. Most seemed to be waiting for me to do something heroic. But as long as she stayed conscious, there wasn’t much I could do until the experts got there, other than try to stop the bleeding.

“Hey you, in the red polo shirt!” I shouted at this sweaty looking guy with glasses. He pointed at his chest and looked a little sick. “Yeah, you.  I turned back to her, checking over the bullet hole. It looked like a clean shot. In one side, out the other. “Go find a paramedic to come help me, ok?” He nodded and ran off.

“So what’s your dad do for a living?” I asked desperately as I cringed and stuck my thumb up against the hole. She gasped in pain, and her voice was shaky when she finally answered.

“He works for an insurance company.”

“And how old are you?”

“Eighteen.” She rasped, coughing.

“Ok, well…” I sought for ideas as I poured a sip of water into her parted lips. Her breathing was growing short and rapid. “What’s your favorite class in school?”

“Never mind that now,” She said, surprising me with that calm defiance. “What’s your name?”

“Todd,” I said, clearing my throat and added, “Arderton.”

“Will you promise me something, Todd?”

I nodded, as the sirens grew louder. 

The Butterfly Song

I felt a glass root beer bottle crunch under my foot as I leapt up. Everywhere people were screaming. They flooded past me, a herd of colors whizzing by. My head was spinning.

Was that really a gunshot?

Even as I puzzled the question, another shot cracked through my ears. For a minute it didn’t register. After all, it was the Fourth of July. I’m hearing fireworks, that’s all. But then came another shot and more screams and I caught sight of security guys racing through the crowd. Slowly I realized what was happening, and panic seized my whole body. Throat contracting, I turned to run with everybody else. But there were obstacles everywhere, and I tripped within seconds, tumbling down on my stomach. In that moment, I turned and looked back, to where all the people were coming from.

And I saw him. The gunman. He was wearing all black, including a hood that hid most of his face, and sweating heavily. He was coming towards me. He raised that .45 semi-auto and fired another round, aiming randomly as people scattered like frightened birds, screaming in terror. I ducked my head, trying to make myself as flat as possible. The gunman was about forty-some odd yards from me and firing wildly in all directions. I looked up at a patch of people still trying to figure out what was going on. One by one they turned, saw the gunman, and started racing away.

The last of them didn’t even get to take one step. She was wearing blue shorts and a flowy white blouse.

Only thing missing was red.

I should have closed my eyes, but I didn’t. I saw everything. Her face when the bullet tore through her was like nothing I’d ever seen or imagined before, and not at all what I expected. For a minute all she did was stare down at the gushing hole in her side, as if she wasn’t sure how it had gotten there. Then her eyes swung back up to the gunman. She didn’t fall or bend over even. She just pressed her hand against that growing red stain and stared up at the man who’d made it. And the expression on her face was pure, simple sorrow.

I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I watched. I watched as the gunman and his victim shared a look that seemed to last a thousand years and a millisecond all at once. Then he turned away and fired again.

And she fell. 

The Butterfly Song

I leaned my head back, loving the feel of the cool grass as it tickled the back of my neck. The music was loud and abrasive and the faint smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air, but the summer breeze was warm and a tinge of excitement clung to everyone who passed by. I closed my eyes, knowing that the sky was still blue above me, even though I couldn’t see it. I heard laughter, and yelling. Everything around me screamed Fourth of July. Everything was perfect. It was summer. Life was good.

I opened my eyes, and saw Jason cracking open a root beer, and Mac cracking open a real beer. They smiled and motioned towards the water, where the fire work display was being set up on the barge. Fort Vancouver held the largest firework display on the west coast. Every year hundreds of people covered the grassy hill overlooking the Columbia with picnic blankets and umbrellas. There was basically one huge Fourth of July party that lasted from around eleven in the morning to about eleven at night.

It was about three o’clock now though, and the crowd was really starting to get thick. It was like a tremendous water color painting, smeared with red white and blue all across a canvas of grassy green. I sat up, rubbing my neck. It had been a long day, and I was tired. Mac slapped my shoulder and laughed.

  “Wake up. The fun’s just starting.” He chugged his beer, the foam dripping off his chin. The sight of it sickened me. Ever since last New Years, I’d lost my taste for the stuff. Jason handed me a root beer without a word, and I could feel him sensing my thoughts. I thanked him with my eyes and took a sip of the sweet drink, savoring its bubbling froth. The words of a country song floated towards us from the grandstand.

 “What time are the fireworks supposed to start?” Mac sputtered, flecks of beer flying out to hit my nose like tiny rockets. I wiped my face distastefully.

“Ten, I think.” I replied, turning to glance around. I spotted a redneck smoking a cigar. His belly sagged toward the ground, and he gave into gravity, flopping next to his sunburned wife who was screaming at their wild looking kids.

God bless America. I thought to myself, smiling.

“Ever see so many rednecks in one spot?” Jason said, as if reading my mind.

“Hey now!” Mac scoffed. “Some of us are rednecks. So no insults. The good ole US of A is country founded by rednecks.” He drank deeply, his swarthy face getting red.

“Oh sure.” I laughed. “Nothing says redneck like a powdered wig and a Declaration of Independence. Those founding fathers must’ve been a real bunch of beer-swilling country boys.” I mocked sardonically. Mac glared at me, then threw back his head and inhaled deeply.

  “Now that’s what freedom smells like!” He said, smacking his lips. Jason smiled, saying nothing. “Come on; I’m going down to check out the booths.” Mac said abruptly, staggering to his feet. “You comin’?” Jason stood and brushed off the seat of his pants, but I shook my head.

“Nope, I don’t think the booths will have anything I want. You guys go for it. I’ll watch the stuff.” They nodded and sauntered off towards the bottom of the hill near the grandstand, where there were booths set up fair-style selling all sorts of crap I couldn’t afford. Snazzy sunglasses and stupid looking hats were the major commodities, and I worked too hard for my money to waste it on that. Plus, the real reason Mac wanted to go down the hill was to scout out the girls, not the glasses. We’d somehow managed to set up camp right in the middle of a suburban-style mess. Tuckered out moms and screaming kids, sleeping dads and the occasional grandparent, surrounded us on all sides. Not the perfect set-up for three guys looking for a good time. Or two guys I should say. Or one guy. Jason never really seemed like he was in the mood for having fun these days, and I didn’t have any taste for girls so soon after Amy. Although part of me wanted to go out and find a new one, just to rub it in her face.

 For now, though, I figured I’d leave the romance department up to Mac. All I really wanted was to feel the sun on my face and smell the sweet and musky scent of mesquite. I leaned back again and closed my eyes, with the tangy, thick taste of the root beer still clinging to my tongue.

As long as I live…whatever I do…the taste of your kiss is so bittersweet, I ain’t gonna beat, no way I’m gonna beat this summer with you….

A bad Brad Paisley impersonator crooned from the bandstand, making me cringe. I sighed.

Yep. God bless America.

And that's when the first shot rang out across the July sky.