Back To School Blogging

While driving to Breesi's house Friday, I listened to this interview on the radio with a middle-aged woman (Libbie) who took a year-long road-trip adventure to "find herself." Before she left, Libbie's girlfriends threw her a going-away (apparently this story used a lot of hyphenated words) party, and one of her friends got her a box of Peeps. Libbie was wise and thought Peeps were repulsive, so she decided to keep them as companions on her journey across the US. She named them cute P names and strapped them in her passenger seat. She took pictures with them at funny places and used them to bring up conversation with strangers whom she never would have met had it not been for the Peeps. A while through her journey, she had to replace the original Peeps with new Peeps because they were falling apart, but she still has the original Peeps.  

The point of the story that I really enjoyed was how she figured out that she needed to end the adventure. She flipped on the Wizard of Oz one night at the part where the Wiz is flying up in the hot air balloon away from Dorothy, and Dorothy is crying out, "Come back, come back! Oh, how will I ever get home?" Glinda says, "Why, Dorothy, you've known how to get home all alone. Just click your heels," blah blah blah. It's pretty shruggable that she came the whole way and figured out that she didn't need anyone else or anything else (i.e. her journey) to help her find herself, but I like it all the same. It's like the end of an episode of Scrubs. You can go to the webpage here to read about it, or just click this baby to listen to the podcast version of The Story. It was really pretty cool.

While long ago I had adopted Libbie's taste in Peeps (that is, none), I

still get them every Easter from my parents. This year, instead of giving them to my gobbling brothers, I decided to put a few in the microwave and then save the rest to make a diorama with Breezy. Inspired by internet America. For now they are festering in the shoe-box until we make use of them.

An interesting thing happened just now--I wrote this and I didn't know I was going to. I typo-d "breathed" and went from there almost automatically. Anyway. -She breathed into the window pane and smudged her nose up against the glass--ew--it was instinct to back away from the car window even though there was no way her exhales could reach me; I surrendered to it. Her eyes were wide as she struggled for my attention--and more, my approval, an older, chaperone part of me she saw in someone who had a separate life they left to come home on spring breaks and labor days--a nemesis, but of one to gain favor. I remember when it was me on the other side of the glass, me pining, me straining, me clenching my teeth in willpower to force elders to like me and say I was "mature for my age." Me, still yet pining, always pining, for others' attention. Me, almost taxable; me, independent of spirit...but my independence was lost forever, squashed under the flat, solid sole of my starvation to be noticed.

In other news, it's back to school and as weird as ever, for multiple reasons. Hopefully God will give me the focus I need to get to the summer.

Peeping,

Kaitlin