::Unexpected Liberation::
"drinking coffee; making plans to change the world."

A long entry about all that is me. I miss it dearly.

March 29, 2005
Today, my English teacher dared me to be on time for class from now on.

Goodness.

It's not like I'm late all the time. Okay, to be honest, I am late all the time....but it never exceeds ten minutes and I've given a darned good reason as to why. Of course, I may have bended the truth a little bit...but it's no big deal.

People need to lighten up.
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I am terribly homesick.

I miss the West Coast more than I have in a long time, and it's getting worse every day.

I miss the fresh air-that crispness that you feel when you breathe it in.

I miss the sky-I have never seen a bluer sky than the ones I've seen in Seattle. Which is strange because the city is huge...therefore smog infested.

I miss waking up and knowing that I'm exactly where I should be-There is no better feeling than knowing that you are in the right place.

I miss the flowers-The lilacs. I haven't seen any naturally growing lilacs here...and it makes me sad. The best flowers ever...and they don't grow in back alleys here like they do back home.

I miss my sister-My "Peace be with you" supa dupa sista. My best friend in the entire world. The girl that I can go for weeks without talking to, and then pick back up as though we never stopped. The girl who knows my soul, my love for all things lovely, my addiction to the good things in life, my heart and the dreams it contains, and who shares my insane obsession for the DMB. My beautiful sister who looks so different from myself, but who is so similar to me that she is my soul mate.

I miss the beautiful mountains-The most beautiful mountains I have ever seen are in the Northwest. The trees, the lakes, the rivers, and those mountains. It's incredible.

I miss the simple things-Being able to say 'Pop', asking for Fry Sauce at McDonalds, Taco Time, Costco, Safeway donut samples, Lamonts, The Bon and it's hideous 'Sale Song' that you're never able to forget, the Fair in September, riding my bike after it rains and trying to avoid the many earthworms that find their way onto the road, the nasty blue bugs that come out in May and make your life miserable for a few weeks, the smell of burning leaves in the fall, going to an actual park with trees and swings and a slide, being able to look around and not see a single "John Deere" hat in sight, and driving down on the interstate with the windows down singing at the top of your lungs to "Everyday".

I just miss it.
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For four years, I lived in apartment D-1 in the Mountain View Villa Apartments. We had one of the bigger places, and so we had an upstairs and downstairs. In comparison with the places around here, they were beyond crappy apartments. In my town though, they were some of the nicest. We had the big graveyard behind us, and an old tiny one to the left of us.

My friends and I used to walk around the old one with it's overgrown weeds and read the headstones. It was so interesting to read on there that someone had died in the 1800's, and here we were, living in 1997.

I remember that apartment better than any other one I had lived in. I have never lived in a house, and so the only places I've known my entire life have been apartments and an occasional duplex.

I remember on Saturday mornings my day would fix breakfast. Eggs, muffins, sausage...sometimes pancakes. Saturday was our cleaning day, and I always loved/dreaded it.

I remember sitting and watching Melrose Place and 90210. I remember watching the gymnastics and cheerleading competitions on ESPN, and my little clock radio that I always had tuned to the country station. I didn't have a cd player until I moved here, and my clock radio was my closest link to the outside world. I would sit for hours in my window and watch the lights and listen to the radio.

Even though my brother was seven years younger than me, we would play together all the time. I figured it was my duty to show him that ropes of life. We made massive forts in his room and would play in them for hours. We sang songs, and made tapes on his little "baby boom box/recorder".

I remember the walks that my family took in the summer. You could walk absolutely anywhere in my town, and we would. I remember having a crush on a boy named James, and getting my family to walk by his house one night so I could spy on him. It was sixth grade year, and James invited me to go to the fair with him that year.

The fair. That was another thing. We lived across the street from the fairgrounds, and so for an entire five days I could see the lights and hear the shrieks of excitment and terror as the really scary rides scared the girls. The Gravitron, The Pirate Ship, The Zipper, The Hammer. I remember getting in trouble one year, and not being able to go for a few nights. So I sat in the window of my brothers room and watched for hours. I saw a guy lose his hat on the Hammer, and I watched as the Pirate Ship threatened to fly completely over..and didn't. I remember eating a frozen chocolate covered banana one year, and getting Elephant Ears to share with my family.

Nobody here knows what Elephant Ears are. It makes me sad.

We lived behind a grocery store in the apartment. Safeway. Oh yes, for those of you who know what that is, I lived behind one.

My friends and I would pool our money together and climb the fence behind the store to go and buy $0.25 Hostess pies. I always bought my dad an apple one. Because he liked the apple ones, and just in case I got in trouble for going to the store...I had gotten him something too.

I saw the world through the windows of that apartment. I lived through so many things there.

I saw my first fight behind the grocery store. I got to sneak in the backdoor to the movie theatre that was located right next to it. I got to run in the sprinklers that came on in the summer, and follow them around the apartments as they turned on and off because of the timer. I saw a lady slip on the sidewalk carrying a twelve case of beer and cut her arms so badly that she needed an ambulance and fire truck and three cop cars. We played Frisbee golf looooooong before I moved here and it was popular and had community cookouts until 2am. I went to VBS, carried my barbies in a pink plastic suitcase, wore jellies even when they weren't cool, played catch with myself, rode my bike to the community pool with the helmet I refused to wear banging on my handlebar, used a cardboard box as a sled to slide down the huge pile of snow that the plow had pushed against the side of the dumpster, and did acrobatic moves on the swings in the front yard.

Yes. I miss the West more than you can ever imagine.

9:26 a.m. ::
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