Candyland

It's become somewhat of a Halloween tradition that every year, at 12:01 am, November 1st, J and I run to the local Wal-Mart and buy bags and bags of discounted Halloween candy. We've maybe done this once. Maybe. The truth is that we usually don't remember until November 1st, 7:00 pm and by then, absolutely all of the candy is gone. Can you believe?

After being disappointed by Wal-Mart, we stopped at the HEB on our way home, just to see. Luckily, we came home with a huge back of Wonka candy (for $3.50) and a MASSIVE bag of chocolates for $5 :) It was absolutely wonderful. I know it's kind of a silly tradition, but it's always nice to have candy around for those stressful all-nighters.

Does anyone have any silly post-Halloween traditions? :)

Achoo!

There are some things I absolutely love about college. There are the football games

The very random roadtrips

And an assortment of other things that make me so grateful for this stage in my life. BUT there is definitely one thing about college that I'm definitely not going to miss and it's how midterms, sickness, attendance policies that force ill people to come to class and my weak immune system all come to be friends towards the end of October. Without fail, every single year, I get sick. My sophomore year, it was so bad that I actually ended up getting the swine flu!

This year, I've been fighting against it with everything I could but today, I officially fell ill and have been snuggled up in bed with some Vicks, Dayquil and flaky biscuits. It is no good I tell you since this is also the busiest time of the semester :| Hopefully this passes soon since next weekend is the conference I've been prepping for in one of my classes! As is, it's already a stressful experience. I don't want to add being sick to the mix. So here's to a quick recovery time!

Crazy Cat Lady?

I love cats. I feel like that's a pretty well-known fact around here considering how much I praise my little furbabies

I never really thought it was a big deal. So, when today, a cat followed J back from the dumpster, I was pleasantly surprised and put a glass of milk out. Much to my surprise, the cat came inside and planted itself just inside the door, purring and falling asleep. Her behavior around people really led me to believe that she was a stray cat rather than a feral one and I started to make plans to take her to the local shelter to have her scanned for a microchip. She kept walking in and out but I wanted to keep an eye on her, just in case we ended up taking her to the shelter tomorrow. She wandered off and I wandered after her and lo and behold, four cats follow me. They drink the milk (special cat milk, of course) and drink the water and poke their heads inside.

I was amused by this and was glad that the cat I thought was a lost cat continued to act much like a domesticated cat whereas the other ones clearly were distrustful of people but then... but then the neighbors started to laugh. And call the cats over. And call me a crazy cat lady :( Not a very nice thing, if you ask me. But why? Why can people love dogs and be considered perfectly normal but if I put out water for some cats and make plans to reunite one with her family, am I considered a crazy lady? Why do I become the butt of a joke? I might love cats but at least I'm not this lady:

Sigh. I guess such is the double-standareded way of the world. And now next time, I'll be self-conscious when I'm looking out for a cat.

Sunday Afternoon Love

For the first time in what seems like a very, very long time, it rained in good ole' College Town, Texas. It started at about 3 in the morning and kept going until about noon and it was absolutely wonderful. Right now, the window's open and you can still smell the rain from outside. The weather's cooled to a beautiful SEVENTY DEGREES (!!!!!) and we're just lounging around, getting work done for tomorrow.

We take fall very seriously around here which is why there's a pumpkin spice latte chilling out on my keyboard and Funfetti halloween cupcakes tempting me on the counter. I live for these kinds of Sundays :)

Risk Management

One day, someone told me that life was one big project in risk management. That we would have to make calls that scared us in the hopes that they might pay off one day. Sometimes, we would be wrong and we would have to take our losses but sometimes we would be right and those choices would catapult us onto a whole new level of life we might not have known before. Regardless of what we chose, it would always be in our best interest to choose something. If not, we'd never go anywhere.

This is a nifty idea in theory but lately I've been wondering if I'm not too scared to make those big calls. Lately, I've been thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stay in one place. I'd never make any big gains but at the same time, I'd never be dealt any major blows either. I don't know. I know I'm way too young to be thinking this way but that might be part of the problem. This is such an uncertain time in my life that even the smallest choice seems to have massive repercussions and I'm afraid. Afraid of being hurt or afraid of making the wrong decisions. I have to actively work at not sheltering myself from all of these choices.

Today and all of this week (and every other week, if we're being honest), I'm being faced with some major calls and I don't know if I want to make them. I wish I could say that I don't know if I should make them because I don't know if they're right but if I'm being honest with myself, I know that's not why. I'm just scared. I'm scared so I would rather do nothing than launch on my risk management project. BAH.

The New Ally

So I guess the real question about life is: who do you want to be? One time, my freshman year of high school, I actually sat down and wrote out what kind of person I wanted to be. It was like a job interview with myself. I started with character traits and went on to ask myself, "What would you do in this kind of situation?" It took me about three hours, writing in the dark in the middle of the night but by morning, I had a list. I cut out it, glued it inside my folder and titled it: Ally. See, this was back in the day when I mostly went by Alex. Ally was the girl I wanted to be. She had the courage I never seemed to be able to find and starting the very next day, I began to be her. I began to be the better version of myself.

I hadn't completely forgotten what it was to be Alex. A lot of her personality was right there, too. But things like fear and insecurity were pushed to the side and, by trying every day, I became the person I wanted to be. Now, about eight years later, I feel like it's probably time I do it again. I don't plan on changing my name (again) or anything, but sometimes, I think, it's a good idea to think about the person we actually want to be and live with more intention and less by accident. (Totally stole this quote from someone wiser than me).

The New Ally:

-Is brave.
-Isn't afraid to be alone.
-Doesn't feel like she's less worthy than anyone else so is less insecure and much more sure of herself.
-Takes time to see the beauty in the world
-On that same note, takes time to see the beauty of the individual.
-Is not so shy
-Will probably still freak out about the future but know that, somehow and someway, everything will be alright.

The list probably needs some more work and I'll add on to it as time goes on but for now, I must write a 15 page paper due TOMORROW. I feel like procrastination is one of those things that every version of myself will suffer from.

It's Probably Incoherent (Because Most Posts About Writing Usually Are)

I don’t know when it became so hard to do what you really, really like to do. I’m not talking about the interference from work and school and the general responsibilities of real life. I’m talking about that fear of failure and that depletion of creativity that comes from realizing you’re not very good. How is it that stories go around finding people? I read all these inspiring biographies about people who just had an idea fall into their head. It reminded me of this documentary I saw one time where a smart little boy told his mom that he had seen her from Heaven and knew that she was the only one who would be able to raise him. Is that how stories work? Do they look down at the world from the cosmos and single out the one person who could best express them to the general public?

Or is it random happenstance? Is it eating too much chocolate before bed and then having crazy dreams? Is it constant perseverance: taking time to type meaningless word after word so that the document isn’t blank anymore? And can someone please explain to me how I ended up with all these characters and no story? I did have a story once upon a time ago and I remember thinking that it was the most important story in the world. I had this inescapable thing to project it out into the world. It demanded to be told and I was just the hands it used to compose itself. But now, I don’t really understand the story. Maybe that’s because I know how it ends now and it ends well for every party involved.

It’s like that favorite picture that represents a fantastic point in time that gets all wrinkled from constant use and exposure to the elements. Then, one day, you realize you have other great memories that need a space on the wall and so, gently, you take your favorite picture and put it into an album before tucking it onto the shelf. It’ll always be there when you need it but there are newer pictures that represent the same happiness. And the old one? Maybe you don’t talk to those people as much anymore. Maybe you got into a nasty fight with the girl to your left in the photo.

I don’t know. I just know that it’s the picture on the shelf now. It’s still beautiful and it’s still wonderful and it will always be remembered. There’s just other things you want to see on your nightstand.

And then there is all the other stuff. The general responsibilities. I’m so tired. I’m always so tired and I can’t always justify staring at a blank Word document when I hardly have time to breathe anyway. Maybe I’m not that lucky person that a story is just going to find one day. I just have my characters. And they roll around, joke around and flourish in a thousand and one different environments. But they don’t tell a story. They just are. Very much in the same way that I just am. And since when did I decide it was okay to start writing in fragments? Sheesh.