For whatever reason, I've been plagued by memories the past few days. Not as in sad memories, just random events that I remember. Two in particular.
In the first, I couldn't have been more than 8 or 9. I think 8 sounds about right. Someone at our church must have had cancer or some other terminal illness, because my mom went to this man's apartment to help straighten and organize and seperate things out (my mom always used to do stuff like that when I was younger). We were still in VA then. I remember that his apartment building was red brick. And it was sunny outside. I remember sitting on an avacado green couch and reading a book; I was never far from a book in those days. It was some little girl's ghost mystery book that used to be my mom's. It had a really musty old book smell. Or maybe that was the apartment. One of the two. When I finished the book, my mom sent me out to the playground to play. By myself. That was nothing new. I always played by myself, since my brothers never included me. But that day, it was just me, so playing by myself was fun. It was sunny. There were no other kids playing. I don't think any kids lived in the complex. There were swings. I loved swings. The playground faced the building, which had exterior corridors, and was seperated by parking. Off to the side was a slightly wooded areas with a drainage "creek". The provided much amusement for the morning. The "woods" were covered in pineneedles. All dead. My mom checked on me once. I only saw the man once. He was old. And sick. And probably about to die.
The other memory is quite different. A year and a half ago, I found myself coming home form my Chattanooga/Atlanta/Charlotte trip early to go to a church picnic on Jordan Lake. I had to play in the youth v. Deacons/Elders frisbee game (youth won). The (mostly) high schoolers grabbed a table off to the side, away from everybody else, to eat. I had Bo's. We played the cup game. Alex did his impersonation of Faith Hill. Somewhow, everyone else got roped into playing a Jessica-and-Walt-created game; I knew better than to get involved. But everyone headed off to the beach, so I followed. I found myself sitting on a log with Lindsay, Drew and Daniel Hostetler. I think there were two guitars between the four of us. Drew and I were (surprise, surprise) in the midst of a huge fight. Maybe the biggest we've ever had. Lindsay and I were having issues as well. And I din't know Daniel too well then. But I wouldn't have changed the people for anything. It was perfect. Late afternoon. We took turns hogging the guitars. Our friends were yelling in the background as we listened (or ignored, in some cases) intently to each other play. At one point, Daniel looked up and said "Y'all...my mom's having a BABY!". Seeing as she was VERY (like, 7 months) pregnant at the time, it wasn't news to anyone. It just seemed to hit him at that moment. It was that kind of atmosphere. After that evening though, we went our seperate ways. Daniel and I hung out some the rest of that summer and into the beginning of the school year. He used to ask me for rides home or just give me that goofy grin the hallway until he got too cool for me. I never see him anymore. Lindsay and I are still good friends, but we hardly see each other. I saw her yesterday at the Trinity basketball game and she commented that we haven't done anything just the two of us since New Year's last year. I don't see much of Drew either, except when I'm going to see his plays. So I dunno. It's not like that afternoon bound us with an unbreakable bond or anything. It was just perfect.
- thoughts provided by Katey Orr @ 4:21 PM

Monday, November 24, 2003

 

As much as I try to deny it at times, I think I really am academic by nature. I think I do actually enjoy studying most of the time (I just hate that it cuts into my other activities). I think I do get satisfaction out of correctly deriving an inverse trig function. I think I enjoy becoming more educated, however self-centered and egotistical my reasons for doing so may be.
I had an awesome English 1 teacher. Besides being a Christian, good friend, and understanding of everything I went through that year, she was just a good teacher. She challenged us a lot. But since then, I haven't been able to get excited about English at all. Maybe that's because my other English teachers have sucked. But in any event, I started getting really excited about English tonight.
Well, not so much English. But poetry. And that reminded me of Mrs. Crossman (my freshman English teacher) because we spent so much time on poetry that year. But tonight, I had to write another poetry response. You'd think I'd hate it. It is a bit of a waste of time. But tonight I got to write about a Natasha Tretheway poem. Seriously, if you never buy another book of poems, buy Bellocq's Ophelia . Last time, I wrote about Elizabeth Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?". As "cliche" as that poem is (and even though it inspired one of my favorite songs), I hadn't ever really paid much attention to it. A couple weeks before that, I wrote about "The Soul selects her own Society" by Emily Dickinson. Obviously, being a big Dickinson fan, I'd read it many many times and studied in it school. But I was able to make a stunning (if I do say so myself) analysis of it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's been a long time since I've gotten excited about English, and especially poetry. I was burned out for a long time. But tonight, I plan to blow off calculus (oops!) and pour over all the books of poems that Jamie Bevill gave me a couple years ago. And who knows...maybe I'll even write something!

- thoughts provided by Katey Orr @ 9:11 PM

Sunday, November 23, 2003

 

I don't think I could have asked for two better weekends than this one and the one prior. I spent all last weekend with Jessica and Anna, watching movies and playing frisbee and football, and all the craziness that ensued. On Friday (of this week), I went driving. I was supposed to go to a Justin McRoberts concert, but it didn't work. So I hopped on 86 and just drove. It was magnificant.
Yesterday morning, my mom and I went to Costco. We did that every Saturday morning for years, but in the past year or so, between my working and having class, we haven't done it very much. Then I went to Elyse's for a cookout with some girls from school. That was awesome. The weather was beautiful (there's NO way it's November!) and we had a grand 'ole time. Then we went to the mall to see SpencerAcuff. Again, much fun. I went straight from there to work, with Elyse. Work was great, despite Elyse's continuous insistance on making me blush by bringing up a certain story. Even though I was definitely ready to leave by 11, we had a great time. And tips were good (my paycheck, however, wasn't)!
This next weekend is gonna be wierd though. Thanksgiving just won't be Thanksgiving this year. It's usually a huge deal in my family. We all go down to my mom's parents in Charlotte, along with both her brothers and their kids, as well as my grandma's brothers and some kids. And we've been known to have other random cousins or semi-related people show up. Last year, we had 23. I think there was 25 one year. This year, we're only having 10. Just my family, my grandparents, and one of my mom's brothers and his family. My whole family won't even be there, since Mike's in Scotland. Not nearly as much basketball will be watched and I'd be very surprised if there's a game of Risk. I won't have to spend all Thursday in the kitchen, like I have the past couple years, 'cause there simply won't be as much food to make. Everyone, even all the cousins are sitting at the "big people's table" this year (last year, we had three different tables). I'm all about tradition, especially around the holidays, so this weekend's really gonna mess with me. My mom keeps telling me that I couldn't expect it to be the same forever; after all, some of those people are getting kinda old. I guess I did though. And I don't know if I'm sadder about the change or the fact that I didn't anticipate the change.

- thoughts provided by Katey Orr @ 2:41 PM