2008 wasn't too bad.

I learned and loved. Loved and lost. Lost and learned.  Not necessarily romantically, but overall. All relative, really. And I spent more of my year here than anywhere else. Weird thought.

One of my best friends started a blog (ugh, that word!) and linked mine, which reminded me that it existed in the first place. (pssst, she is intogold.) My initial intention with this was achieved. I'm still positive and if I were to really name everything I was grateful for in every day, it'd be pretty sickening. 

That's not to say I don't get sad. Oh yeah, I get sad. Real bad. But I can always pick myself up out of it within a day because I've counted my blessings so many damn times.

So I'm thinking of a new angle. My small joys? Lord knows I can make lists of those. Maybe they'll remind people of their own.

So here's something to celebrate for today: I no longer feel like a stranger in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I remember quoting a Bright Eyes song every time I came home from college. (You know the one: I feel more like a stranger each t ime I come home). Well, that's not true anymore. Everything feels familiar again -- familiar enough to the point where I'm really going to miss it when I move to Portland, Oregon, this summer.

Speaking of Portland, isn't that something else to celebrate? The future? The possibilities the unknown holds? A year ago, I wasn't planning on being here, but I am. More proof is that you never know what is going to happen in your life. The thought of that alone is enough to keep me going.

Tomorrow, I'll go an hour and half southeast to see my cousin in the hospital. She got diagnosed with leukemia last week. And I'll tell you what, if she can smile and laugh knowing she has a road to recovery ahead of her, I can, too. And so can you. 

Thanksgiving.

Sometimes I think I get so lost in being thankful for what I don't lack that I forget to admit I'm lost in general. If anyone asks me what I'm doing, the only honest answer is "I have no idea."

More often than not I'm OK with that. Today I'm not. Only slightly ironic.

spontaneity.

I've been known to do things on a whim. Drive across the state in the middle of the night, buy $225 concert tickets at work, get drunk at 7 a.m., run across a parking lot stark naked in March, jump off a bridge in the dark ...

My latest bout of spontaneity involved a text message from a dear friend in the middle of the afternoon. She said she's be in Philadelphia for an Americorps thing that night. I had plans but altered the course. Philadelphia is a lot closer to Scranton than Pittsburgh, and I hadn't seen Emmy since the morning I left Indiana, Pennsylvania.

I did my thing, trucked it the two hours down the turnpike and got there at 10 p.m. We went out, drank Pabst and gin and tonics, did a shot of Old Crow of old time sake and saw a shitty band at a random bar on South Street. On the walk back to the hotel, we saw a guy get the shit beat out of him on the hood of a car. I stole tea and cheese from Wawa, and we went back to the hotel where I got teary looking at pictures on her camera of people I miss so much.

Don't think of me as so reckless. I've also been known to play it safe. More often than not, I don't, I just do. And more often than not it's not doing that leaves me with regret. Reflecting on the afterglow of this leaves me with one conclusion: I simply did it because I know she'd do the same for me. And to know that is true is more warmth and grace than I could ever ask for.

I drove back the next day and called the rest of my best friends and expressed my love for each of them. They expressed the same back. To love and to be loved. To quote the ever dramatic Bright Eyes, let's just hope that is enough.

autumn or fall, whichever you prefer.

Everyone's favorite season is here.

As soon as the leaves started to change this time, I got a horrible bout of sadness in my heart because I vividly remember so much about last fall. I said at the end of it that it was simutaneously the best and worst I could ever imagine. Rachael's situation happened, Josh broke my heart and several people in my life died. I attended a funeral on my birthday. But I also spent a great deal of time with the best friends I could ever ask for, saw some killer shows, had amazing nights that blended into days and even met the person I'd fall in love with not even three months later. Every day was something new. Every day was an adventure. And even though my heart was hurting, every day felt like there was still worth. After all, I still had it so made, and things could've been so very much worse.

That's when I realized that fall didn't have to be a metaphor for dying. Things do die in the fall, yes, but they die beautifully. I didn't have to hold on for dear life to the daylight in fear of winter; I had to prepare myself for what was going to come: cold, heartbreak and darkness but also so much potential for growth and warmth and new. It was going to happen whether or not I was ready.

So that's what I'm going to do the rest of the season. I've stopped wishing I were somewhere else and I've stopped wishing I could turn the clock back to autumn 2007 and live it again. I'm accepting the roadblocks keeping me here and appreciating the things that are unique only to Northeast PA, namely, the people. After all, if I were in Indiana, I couldn't witness my cousin Katie slyly uproot a McCain/Palin campaign sign and hide it in the woods.

It's these little pieces about everything that matter as long as you're celebrating rather than sweating. The fractions really do mean more than the sum. You just have to let them.

so long, september

In the last month, I've been a bad "blogger." Not telling you the simple things that I'm grateful for. It's not to say this beautiful month wasn't full of stuff worth mentioning -- because it definitely was. Here are some things my short-term and semi-long-term memory feels worth noting:
-the generosity of my boss during the manic La Festa Italiana weekend. He threw us all a nice extra chunk of change (er, Jacksons) in our tip jar at the end of those crazy shifts.
-finding "Spiderland" on vinyl for 10 bucks
-finding "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" on vinyl for 8 bucks
-giving someone "Slanted & Enchanted" on vinyl for more than those combined but not caring because I think it was a great gift
-a very awesome letter -- complete with stickers on the envelope -- from Todd
-other awesome tangible mail from the likes of my Western Pennsylvania comrades
-keeping necessary phone conversations strictly business with someone who once possessed your heart and not even obsessing about it for a minute afterward because he just doesn't matter that way anymore
-running into exactly who you want to run into in Philadelphia. Getting emotional with a former c0-barista, band mate, temporary roommate and forever friend.
-the lax security and uncorporateness of the All Tomorrow's Parties New York festival and all the amazing new temporary friends we made. Bonjour!
-the ever tasteful and handsome Mike Dahlheimer letting us in his Days Inn room during the festival so we didn't have to freeze in Ryan's jeep
-drinking Summer Shandy on the last day of summer and seeing My Bloody Valentine play their first show on U.S. soul in 15 or so years and how amazing that entire weekend was
-always acknowledging and being thankful for simple generosity I see in Scranton. This mostly is at work where a countless amount of people have bought the downtown crazies their share of caffeinated beverages. Yes, it's just a coffee, but they don't have to and they do anyway.
-calculated and calm alone time during the day
-sleepovers at the place of a guy who calls you back
-my parents being cool and not asking questions and just assuming I'm fine, because I am
-practically feeling people thinking about you because you know they love you and you know you're on their mind
-these fall colors!
-even longer voice mails
-and finally today: having chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream for breakfast.

I just keep on keeping on. It's OK if you do the same.

long voice mails.

I think I live for the days I'm at work, check my phone, see a voice mail, listen to it and have to save it for later because it's so long. Usually these are the type from my friends across the state and usually they are the very best. They start out with a chuckle because my greeting tricks everyone. Every time, too.

Whomever calls usually gives me an update, celebrates what he or she knows about me, prompts me to call back and says the usual, but not empty goodbyes: miss you, love you, all that jazz. Please know that these mean everything to me. After a few months of missing people constantly, I've gotten used to it. That doesn't mean I've forgotten; it just means it's not as aching as it was. So when I hear these messages, my heart just swells and wants to burst, like it typically does about anything involving any of the fantastic hearts I know and love. These used to be just from Todd when he first moved from Indiana to Pittsburgh, but now they're much more frequent from several others, too, since everyone went in complete different geographic locations.

So thanks, pals, for taking the time and blabbering about nothing and everything all at once. I really am grateful for your thoughts, concerns and love. In other words, I'm grateful for you overall. We'll actually catch each other on the other end some day. Until then, I love you and I miss you. And I really, really mean it -- but you already knew that.

whilst whistling some bowie song in my head.

Here we are. Another time passing mechanism. I'm occupied waiting for Kim to not be caught in traffic and get here, while my brother is in his room connecting with the Beatles. Living at home has been strange. It makes me feel terribly immature after being on my own for a few years, but it is oddly comforting -- a complete solace when I permit it to be.

But who needs solace? And from what? Only when things aren't going my way does my perspective shift to negative shades of black. That's when I pretend to hover over my life and look at it like I were a cartographer, mapping appropriate exits and on ramps precisely on my highway of almost 23 years. That's a really lame analogy, but it's sincere.

In that imaginary mapping, I'm reminded of those who I know love me. Then i think of how much of a distant snot I've been. Unintentional, of course, because I really cannot recall the last time I had such an ill motive, but still a distant snot. I tell myself that other people have needs, too, and right now one of them for several is me in this place.

Wow. Somehow I've successfully turned a quest for grace into the teenage angst I managed skipped over years ago!

I guess sometimes I have to step outside myself to remember myself -- why things are relevent and why I'm at where I'm at. It almost has that "not realizing what you have until it's gone" effect -- the feeling that sits with you weeks after breaks ups with a polar opposite-turned-complement. And it works because I'm immediately grounded. And then that fuzzy feeling I call gratitude sets in, and I find myself back on track. In the end, it all seems to come down to joy, gratitude and empathy, each of which contribute significantly to the ultimate: LOVE (in all its various fortitudes).