a talk of dreams

this morning, i awoke to realizing my dreams. there are two girls i have thought of recently, *alexa and *june. they are high school friends that i have fallen out of touch with, and yet, i wonder how they're doing, more often than they would think.

alexa was the coolest girl in 6th grade. and i was her friend. but i wasn't cool or popular by anyone's standards. i didn't care. through grade school and high school, we remained friends, not always close, but never fighting, either. she was that girl who i, by morals, may have been considered "better" than, but by my standards, we were equals. she smoke, she drank, she stayed out late to be with the boys, and yet she had an innocence about her, something i couldn't explain. i wrote her poetry, she loved me for it. one night, she told me we could get some gin and drink, just the two of us. i declined, but i wondered what she was doing asking a dumb girl like me to drink, how much fun could i possibly be? we talked through out high school, i always wondered just how well she was doing.

june was a girl i had always known through out high school, but had never gotten close to. when i had just broken up with my boyfriend, beginning of our senior year, she did someone no one else had done: showed me compassion and extended the hand of friendship. i would cry, she would bring me toilet paper. once, i cried on her knee, it left mascara, and it became a moment we would never forget. we were best friends for about a year and a half, inseparable, crazy, and fun. i was content for it to stay this way. middle of our senior year, she fell in love. two, maybe three months later, she was engaged to him. needless to say, people were skeptical and couldn't figure out why anyone in their right mind would get engaged in high school. i knew the guy, and i knew she could do better. i encouraged her to do just that. love, when had, is the most blinding thing a person can experience. she wouldn't hear me, and i was, um, replaced. but i, too, was at fault. i let it go. i didn't try to keep the friend i had been close to for a year and a half. towards the end our senior year, we were nearly strangers, and i couldn't be the crazy girl with her that i once had been.

i have been thinking about these two girls. they have helped make me who i am today, as strange as i may be. it is a year and two months since we graduated. alexa is living in a nearby town and just had a baby. june lives two and a half hours away, working very hard to pay for rent, i'm sure. i have found out little bits and pieces of their lives over the past year, some good, some bad. i just wonder if they ever think of me the way i have reminisced here. it's hard to rebuild that which has been burnt....i can only say that i hope they are happy with who they are and what they've done with their lives. i mean that in the sincerest manner possible. i won't forget them.

*names have been changed to protect the innocent.

what's in a name? and reminiscing

what's in a name? a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet....thanks shakespeare. anyway, my real reason for this is that i've been complimented on the name "circles in the sand" for the name as my blog. i like it, obviously, i chose it. to be honest though, it is the name of a scarcely known 80's song titled circles in the sand (imagine that). when i was five years old, that was my favorite song in the whole wide world. everytime it would air on the radio, i would become enraptured and i would want to dance to it. dancing, for me at age five, would equate dancing around in circles. so, i would make myself sick while listening to that song. ah, the fun of being five again....

you know, when you were five, no one complained when you would play with frogs and put them in jars. no one would yell at you for having a messy room. no one would care that you didn't have shoes on, or that you were running around the yard without purpose. just yesterday, while i was at work, i came across a little green frog like the ones my brother and i used to catch. my brother and i used to put frogs in jars, poke holes in the lid so it could breathe, and keep it as a pet for a day. we always set them free the next day. well, the frog i had just found at work seemed lost, and there was a pond nearby. i decided to let it go free, but when i was walking back, my father thought i had been lollygagging around. i told him i was helping a frog out, he said i needed to get back to work. ah, to be five again....no one yelled at you for playing with frogs.

minneapolis, mn

my family loves to take vacations, just the four of us. we tend to take short weekend ones, but they are never lacking in fun or good times. we spent this past weekend in minneapolis, catching up on some much needed-family time, movies, and shopping. it was good, always is. as retarded and dysfunctional as we can be, we have good times.

despite the silliness of the weekend, i have a song i'd like to put here that defines just how emo i really am. i'm really not gonna hide it, i like to listen to music that moves people, and when it moves them, it moves me. so, don't hate me for it, but i love it. i listened to this song today, just read on.

::caffeine and deadlines::--bellador
the west is calling to ride the blackened veins
into a beautiful sunset
a flaming mirage eight minutes delayed

the seasons change and they bring their demands in suitcases and boxes
i found myself uncertain
with nothing there to keep me driving
but the thought of you
and the song that you've put in my heart
when the morning comes....

those pedestals look an awful lot like gallows
but that's just me and in their words
you will lose yourself
intentions good but meaningless

happy birthday

hey, i gotta tell you something....it's wayland's 20th today. whoa, he's gettin' old (as joel would say). wish i was there. have a good one, dear.

it doesn't seem right

i wrote this on may 19, 2002, and i can't remember why. but tonight it seems appropriate. so i'll put it here.

i can feel the sky turn to shades of grey
like the sunshine of the day
and in every way
it doesn't seem right
the way we fight
the ringing in my ears at night
while the stars seem to shine tonight
it doesn't seem right

so funny the way this feels
how the scar never heals
how your eyes show up in all the wrong places
and i see you in so many different faces

too many times the critics and the stones
have a theory to propose
and do you suppose
that you could soften these words
cuz every time you attack
i can feel the love that turns your way
hiding away
and these arrows as they may
pierce the skin and painfully stay

it doesn't seem right

a band

so there's this really amazing band named further seems forever. i saw them live at cornerstone this year, but i've seen them before. they put on a great show and almost every kid there knows the words to all their songs. it's just awesome. i'll give you a few one liners off their first and second cds. enjoy.

::the moon is down::
*false pretence, a lack of resonance. a derisive sentiment and confidence. these bonds were always fake, crafted for safety's sake. but pasted wings and foil rings do not an angel make.
*and i know that you're never leaving until your flight takes you off and out of my arms and into the air. so far from your charms i cannot bear.
*you said there would not be any reason to fear this world, but you're the reason.
*give up what you have to say. formalities weaken the meaning that you'd convey. in truth hidden in veiled insults have failed results for everyone that lived that way.
*i'm waiting to give you whatever the world may bring. i'd give you my life cuz i don't own anything.
*just because you said what you wanted doesn't make it right. just because the moment was heated doesn't mean that i wanted to fight.
*and sometimes we don't say a thing for a long while. and the ships off shore hold stories that we'd make. and sometimes we are held at bay by these miles. but less of you is more than i can take.
*rain reveals the foundation, and this one's wearing thin and shifting in the sand.
*this is where the water becomes shallow. and nothing here is quite as deep as you hoped it would be.

::how to start a fire::
*let's set this city ablaze we'll burn down the monuments and build mountains in our place. this is the last time we will ever bleed to feel alive.
*the sound now turns to silence but i'll keep spinning around naked in the rain of my own tears as they fall into the bucket of your apologies.
*with starving appetites for arguments, you remind me of a secret i was never supposed to tell.
*i am rejection i am redemption i am desire for obligation.
*you'd trade our starving eyes for a tar and feathered heart, a 25 cent execution. a breath of frigid self-made winter.
*but there you come with a smile that'd send any man to his knees.
*call me a mockingbird and it's done.

the past

you know, it's good to go through all your old stuff sometimes. today, i was cleaning out drawers of papers, memories, and letters that i haven't touched since i was in 9th grade. oh yeah, it was crazy, all the memories that came back to me. past boyfriends, homework assignments, silly girly letters, pictures, even a no-cook cookbook that i've had since i was in 3rd grade. good times, good times.

some of those memories made me smile, some made me think really hard about the things i've gone through. it's been rough. i think we can all attest to that. it's kinda hard looking back at all those memories and wondering "what the heck was i thinking?!" ah, well. i've learned a lot, that much is true. and i'm determined to make things right the first time around (hopefully).

friends with boyfriends

i'm just gonna vent a little bit, i guess i can't say i'm a saint with this either....hope i don't offend anyone. also, names are changed or shortened, depending on the post you read.

my best friend m has a boyfriend. she's gorgeous, she's sweet, she's a volleyball player for uw-milwaukee, and i love her to death. at the beginning of april, she started dating a guy on the basketball team named m. he's attractive, really easygoing, and just as athletic as her. the thing is, he lives in milwaukee, which is a 3 1/2 hour drive from where i live. so, truth be told, i haven't seen much of her this summer. she's always with him, or he's with her. mostly, she's in milwaukee. and i'm not talking days, i'm talking weeks. ah, the infatuation of first "love"....i miss my friend. she's really happy with him, and i've met him and he is a wonderful guy. if they're happy, i'm all for it. i just wish i could have my friend around a little more....

she goes back to milwaukee to start volleyball practice the start of august. i go back to lawrence end of september. i guess i could be angry and dumb and selfish about it, saying she should be here and i won't get to see much of her when she's at school, but you know what. i'm not going to be selfish. i'm happy for her, and this guy she's met. i hope he's worth all the time they spend together, and when she calls me up to tell me how she's doing, i'll be glad to talk to her and reclaim the friendship. i still love her just the same. it's just that, well, "ain't no sunshine when she's gone, and she's always gone too long anytime she goes away."

the future

i'm thinking about it. today i talked to my dad about it, so it's in my mind. what i mean by future is what i'm going to do with the profession i have chosen, psychology, and whether i stay at the college i'm at all four years or if i transfer. at this moment, my plan of action is to stay at lawrence all four years, but at the end of those years, go to bethel in mn for two more years to finalize my plans to be a psychologist. a marriage and family psychologist. ok, so everyone is going into that field, but i'm sure this is what i'm meant to do. i've always been approached by my friends for advice, and i would love to do it for the rest of my life.

also, a note on the future of this blog: i plan on typing what i'm feeling here at the time. i might be sappy and then frustrated, ecstatic then sad. if you can't take it, don't read it. if you enjoy it, read on....

here's the kickoff

ok, so i'll start this blog off right. i think relient k said it best.... here's the kickoff. hope you're not sick of relient k and all the songs we play cuz then you'll want to throw all our cd's away.

gotta love it.

reconsideration, i guess

i was informed by the guy of the away message that it is a line in one of snoop dogg's songs, and it's meant to be political. hmm. i'll let you ponder that one for a while.

objectification of women and me

ok, i can see you guys already rolling your eyes, but hey. let me just say a few words on this. i was slightly piqued when i saw this guy friend's away message: Stand up and be counted or lay down and be mounted. ok now ladies, seriously, does this sound like anything you would ever want to hear? no, i didn't think so. i was just at this awesome music festival in bushnell, il called cornerstone. i went to listen to a speaker give her view on this, and it was in no way feminist or ridiculous, just honest and forthright. she said that women deserve so much more than to be objectified and called "hot." it takes a real man to get to know a woman than to just want to get in her pants. the more she commented, the more sense it made. we are not just some thing to make babies with, we are humans with feelings that are just as important as any man's. so i'm done talking about that, it makes me kind of angry anyway.

hmm, about me. well, it's summer. all i need is an ocean and a few friends, and i'm all set. unfortunately, being in a state that is landlocked, it's a little difficult. oh well. all right, that's enough, i want to see if this worked. hope it does.