Once upon a time I built Big Ben. That’s right, it was me all along. When it was completed, it was a majestic site to behold.

But then, seemingly from nowhere, a Dalek appeared!

It started exterminating every tiny thing it could find! And if that wasn’t bad enough, a second Dalek came along to party as well!

While they were exterminating, The Silence paid us all a brief visit.

Wait, was I saying something? That’s so weird, I feel like I’m forgetting something important and there are suddenly all of these marks all over my hands, but anyway back to the menace at hand: DALEKS!

They exterminated bugs and other little Lego people. Then they tried to exterminate me, but they failed! Mostly because they are tiny and I’m gigantic in comparison. Oh right! Marks! On my hand! That’s what they meant! The Silence was there!

Ugh, this is me getting very old. You see, I seem to have forgotten my place again. What was I talking about? Daleks? Big Ben? That’s right. Big Ben had been created and then there was a Dalek attack! See?! Daleks!

And that’s pretty much how things ended. The Daleks conquered everyone but me. (Because I’m huge!) The Doctor never showed up because I didn’t pull him out of any of my mini figure packs. It was a good day for Daleks, and a bad day for bugs.

And that is the end of my story about what happened when I put together my first set of Legos.

(Also, that’s another one off of my bucket list!)

Ivan, the homicidal love narwhal!

(This was the week of haiku. Sleepy me was bad at doing more than sleeping…)

April 8

Having this last drink
could mean the difference between
happiness and angst.

April 9

We could make this last.
But we’ll need a time machine
and fewer morals.

April 10

Four more large barrels,
some wires, small gizmos, and such
and there will be life.

April 11

There were some good days–
Mostly, I’m just glad you’re gone
and I can move on.

April 12

I’m drifting down stream,
relaxed, enjoying the sun…
escaping from bees.

April 13

Incredibly small.
Terrified, getting braver.
Learning to say no.

April 14

Old friends and good wine
relax away stressful weeks.
The Doctor knows best.

At this point, I had never spent a significant amount of time outside of Idaho without my parents and with complete freedom. Knowing this, you may expect that I am about to write a blog about personal growth, finding myself in the big city, or how much that summer changed me.  I suppose, in a way, that’s all true. I did evolve that summer, I learned a lot about myself, but mostly I learned how to drive in traffic.

I am convinced that there is very little that is more terrifying than arriving in Los Angeles in the early evening after having driven pretty much in Idaho since getting one’s license. Pulling into the city for the first time, sunlight glinting off of my windshield in a maddening way, I felt a sudden wave of culture shock. There were cars, very fast cars, everywhere. People were honking and weaving, and it felt like there were too many lanes on the road making them all very narrow with very little room for driver error. We were navigating with maps and trying to make sure we made the right exit so we wouldn’t have to pull over somewhere and reconfigure our route. It was, in a word, terrifying.

It took me a while to get into the swing of things, but eventually I learned to navigate my way through L.A. traffic at rush hour without so much as a pang of fear. I went from feeling like Frogger trying to cross all of those lanes without finding himself a smooshed mess in the middle of the road, to a girl that knew she could get herself anywhere at anytime. It was something I wasn’t familiar with feeling. It was confidence, and it was, in a word, liberating.

I miss it. I miss the challenge and the feeling of accomplishment from making my way through a big city full of people and surviving. Every now and then I make an attempt to regain that small feeling of driving superiority. I get in my car and do my best to pretend that the freeway between Boise and Caldwell is the 5 or 405. I attack it like a puzzle that must be cracked and fill it with imaginary walls of bumper to bumper cars all trying to get to the same place faster than all of the other people on the road.

In an odd way, it works. It reminds me that, all of these years later, I am still alive and moving forward. I’m still attacking life with the same determination I felt that first day I got into the city, and even when I feel like the lanes are too narrow to navigate, and that there is no possible way I will make it to the ocean from my place in the middle of such a giant mess, there is always a way to find the exit that will get me to my destination.

—

P.S. I went looking for a picture of me from that summer and came up with almost nothing (I assume most of said pictures are trapped on Myspace, and Molly Lewis would be pleased to know I forgot my password). However, I do have one picture of me on a beach in my first bikini hiding from my friend Amy who is taking my picture even with my loud protests. So, This is the tiny little thumbnail of a picture that you get:

April 1

I want to pretend
that this day can end
without my life
being irreparably rent.

April 2

You hold my hand,
grasping tightly
as I fall away.
I touch your cheek
knowing this will
end poorly if
I choose to stay.

April 3

Here we sit on the moon
looking out over the universe
munching on popcorn, and
remembering our times on earth
times spent laughing, and
wondering what the future
would hold. But now we know,
and we can let go of the things
we so desperately hoped for.
We can say our goodbyes,
and dive out into the sun.

April 4

If there was a box
full of endangered monsters
would you open it?

April 5

It’s never easy
saying goodbye to old friends
taken way too soon.

April 6

When nothing seems right
I recall it never was.
There is not a magic time
to return to. There were
always troubles, always
hints of strife. Moving forward
is the only way to survive,
to move backward,
is to give up, to die.

April 7

This is my journey:
knowing things will often
go horribly wrong, and that
there is very little we can do
to turn dark skies blue again.
The bad will frequently spend
more time here than the good,
but you are mine, and that
makes that realization
much easier to bare.
We may not make it to the end,
but that is okay because,
right now, in this moment,
you are exactly what I need.
I may sometimes hide, and
there are moments when this is
all more than I can breathe in,
but you know, you understand,
and we continue in this place of
less than lovers, more than friends.
Sunsets come, and the sun
does not always rise the next day,
but with enough patience
it will come back eventually. Were
the world to explode, igniting
the night into flames, we would
continue to make it through,
better off, because we could
recreate things to be the way
they should have been in the beginning.
They would still be imperfect,
there would still be pain and days
when getting up felt impossible,
but they would be ours to ruin,
that would not fall to anyone else.
Existence takes a brave countenance,
and the ability to say no exceedingly
more than you say yes. Life is meant
to be an intense experience,
and it is intended to be relished,
nothing less. There is little better
than realizing you have found the
ability to continue on. Even if we
wake to nothing tomorrow
we can say that we  gave this our all,
that we got the best, and gave
the best. We found forgiveness,
we found hope in each other.
This is my journey:
understanding that torture
makes bliss all the sweeter, and
that without pain, there would
be no gauge with which to measure
the fullest extent of our most
intense pleasure. Holding on
to the past loosely so as not to
excite it, not inviting in fear
when I know I cannot fight it.

So, poetry…  Here you go!

—

There is that first moment, a spark.
A hand grazing over a shoulder, down an arm,
coming to rest on a waist. Words smoldering
on lips that promise the world, and more.
For an instant, the future flashes across
the sky in a blaze, covering
those below in a promise. Eyes gaze
from under half-lowered lids,
flirting with the idea of more.
A question hangs between two bodies,
suspended in the air, in time.

Caesar is all, “Whatever, man. The 15th of March means nothing to me.”

Soothsayer responds, “Your funeral. See what I did there? You like that?”

Caeser is like, “Stop it with the puns. You’re lame. Now leave.”

The Ides roll around and Caesar calls his friend Soothsayer, “The Ides of March are come.”

Soothsayer replies, “Aye, Caesar, but not gone.”

Caesar has a good laugh at his buddy and walks out the door to attend an important meeting. Then Caesar’s friend Brutus walks in, and stabs him in the stomach.

The end.

Luckily, today was not one of those days, because they are freaking exhausting. No, today was the kind of day where I put on my big girl pants and got to work.

There was planning and organizing and revisiting things that should never have been abandoned. I love my job, sure, but I miss being creative, and so I’m going to do more of that. Pretty much, I’m getting back on track.

Speaking of getting back on track, I wrote a haiku to share because posts about me and how I’m feeling and what I’m doing are dull. I recognize that!

Here it is, a little poem about how done I am with this winter:

Snow, cold, rain, then ice–
freezing rain, fog, and more snow.
Falling. Bruises. Ouch.

Okay, that’s all. Night guys!

Quick fill in:

Got a new job.
Got a better new job.
Love my new job.
Had issues with childcare.
Had panic attacks.
Wondered if I would make it.
Forgot how to relax.
Had chest pains. (Seriously. I did. And I’m not old enough for that shit.)
Remembered there is more to my life.
Figured some stuff out.
Calmed down considerably.
Logged onto my blog.

Look! You’re all caught up!

For serious though, I’ve missed blogging and making comics. I’ve missed sitting down and putting words to the twisted part of me that can only be expressed through writing. I don’t know how I forgot that I could make most everything better by just letting my brain vomit out what it needed to through my fingers and onto a page. I’ve come to my senses. I’m going to be much better about not letting myself get so wrapped up in everything that I forget to let go.

This is all for tonight because it’s late and morning comes early these days.

I’ve missed you.

It was just the afterglow
that sent me into this tailspin.
Where I couldn’t see where I was going,
only where I had once been.
Sitting on this precipice,
looking out over the sleeping below
as the world blew to pieces.
I drank a toast to what was,
took a shot in the arm
for what might have been
then I simply watched it burn.
From my seat above it all,
the sky was set afire
bright orange blazing.
This was how it all began,
it made the most fitting end.

—

For This, We Will Fight

Somebody said it would be fine
and I believed it, sat back, drank my wine.
This is the life of the lost
the forgotten left out in the cold, gathering dust.
You should have been transparent with your lies,
so I  would have known to call this a loss.
It seems my apathy has gotten the best of me,
when I should already be long gone.
This story was written knowing the end,
and as this all comes to a frothy head
we exchange cordial farewells. Moving on
we pretend that it is not destruction in our wake–
that the rubble left behind, does not contain our dead.
It was a war to find the bravest, the brightest stars,
the ones that saw it coming, and left before they went
to shallow graves for a song that played revenge.