To Know I Love You

I stay inside my own mind more often than I really ought to. I think it's why so many people have said they are intimidated by me, at least a part of the reason. It certainly isn't my physical stature because I am five foot two and curvy in awkwardly delightful ways. We've come to an understanding, my curves and I and negotiations are nowhere near any semblance of a table, so I have conceded the proverbial floor. But yes, people find me intimidating. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me to be honest, but it unnerves me in a manner that it pains to express. My mind is a marvelous terror in so many ways. I've offered people a glimpse into its workings and it has scared them on more than one occasion and that wasn't even the darkest corners that haunt even my consciousness. No, they are usually the simplest cause and effect of how I surmise a certain song to be stuck there or the string theory like chaos of how I understand things that I really and truly shouldn't.

I am not as guarded as I once was. I tend to be quite transparent in my so called aging wisdom. I am not old, that is not what I am saying. I am too young and I suppose it's a bit of my problem. I am too young to have others frightened by me in any manner. So I stare in the mirror with a creeping apprehension and whisper what I dread to say too loudly,

"I fear there is something terribly wrong with me."

You see in addition to being intimidating, I don't have a great deal of what one might call "friends". Certainly I have a great deal of those who surround me and declare that they love me. Due an odd quirk in my job, there are even those who leave love notes upon plastic envelopes and it has become the highlight of my week. I love a great many people, perhaps more than reciprocate my affections. I know this and have come to terms with it. I have resolved, however, that this should never be a detriment to my heart's expression. It's one of the many reasons that being found intimidating hurts me a little.

I love to be encouraging, I love expressing my heart to people and even sharing it with select few. Maybe it hasn't been enough. There are very few people who are on my "3am list", which is what I term those close enough to me that if I were to get a flat tire or a broken heart, they would come as quickly as possible to my rescue. To put it kindly, I have learned to change my own tires. I am of an age that it doesn't bode well to be the damsel in distress, but I have such a Joan of Arc complex that I am in a perpetuating state of wanting to rescue others, even if it hurts me.

Though intimidating isn't the worst that I could be described. In my delusions I believe it akin to being seen as strong which I suppose comes from the fact I don't like to be pitied. There was a time in my life where it was all I received because I was broken and it is a logical progression to pity one is such a situation. It didn't change the fact that I didn't like it. This is not a plea for pity, nor is it scorn for those who wish for it. I have a bigger heart than I care to sometimes and I am rendered into near tears as I am surrounded by so many people who feel alone and unloved and ugly. I want to hold each of them every day of their existence and speak life where there is so much death. I wish it was my job to do that, to talk to people and make them smile, let them realize that no matter how they feel

THEY ARE NOT ALONE

I am not impervious to this. I feel alone constantly and the staying in my mind bit doesn't help. It is simply that I know my own mind and even when it scares me, it is more familiar and safe to me than anywhere else. While my mind is rather fantastic and filled with so many wonderful stories and dreams and imaginings...it isn't enough. Perhaps no one will read this and I have come to terms with that, I truly have, maybe just one person will. So to those who do, if any, I wish to tell you something: I am here. I can't stay in my own mind anymore, it's not safe.

I am here for you even though I have likely never met you and in the oddest way I can tell you here and now, I love you. Life is too short to be so afraid all the time. It is too short to listen to the negativity, even if it's coming from yourself. Life is too short to waste it. I have made it my mission as of currently to reach out to as many people as I can because if I can alleviate any sort of pain for any sort of person...it is worth it. My life has been worth it.

I can't keep living in regret, dwelling on the things I never said and the people I care about that I never told. So if ever I can do anything whether it is just encouragement, a kind word, listen, or cure boredom, make you laugh, do let me know. I love to be an encouragement to people because there is too much pain in this life for people not to have a reason to smile. So when I say that I love you it is not in the romantic gushy manner that requires I be aware of your flaws or incur the pretense of false flattery or have a deep understanding of who you are. Nor is it shallow in the same manner I may love a particular coffee mug or a clever quip. When I say I love you it is from the deeply seated part of my being that understands that you are human, the same as me; you need to be heard, to be listened to, to be lifted up from time to time, to laugh, to smile, to feel less lonely. It is the agape love in which you are as much a part of me as I you because let's face it, at the end of the day, we're not so different you and I.

So, should you find I love you (which unless you are a truly awful person (and believe me when I say that takes a substantial amount of doing)) I offer you a part of my heart. It's a strange little piece and I'm not sure what is to be done with it, but it's yours. I'd like to think it helps, just to know you're not alone. To know that I'm not alone. We're only human after all.

The Hardest Word To Say

Throughout all of poetry and literary history, life has been compared to a flower. Thomas Gray, Biblical literature, William Wordsworth, Anita Diamant and so many others speak of life as a flower for so many reasons. Its profound beauty and uniqueness, but the overall trait that elicits the flower’s comparison is its brevity. Life, like a flower, can be beyond description and magnificent despite its simplicity, but for all of its vitality and splendor nothing can last forever.

If you live for any amount of time, you will encounter loss and feel the stinging insatiable pain that accompanies death. There is no seminar, no class, no pamphlet, no words that can prepare you for it, not really. While no experience is exactly the same, there is the universal underlying tone that we all understand. Death can be a creator of peace or a source of conflict. For nearly every life that goes, there is at least one person, at least one person in the whole world who grieves its passing, who weeps uncontrollably as all do when we experience insatiable loss.

I’ve had strange experiences with death. Before the age of four, I apparently experienced it first hand. I stopped breathing and my heart wasn’t beating. (I suppose that’s what I get for pulling a plugged in hair dryer into a tub with me.) I stopped breathing and by medical terminology I was no longer living, but my Daddy brought me back. I was very little when older relatives died, but it didn’t touch me because being so young I wasn’t allowed to see the bodies, nor attend the funerals. It was for the best. As I grew older and started to gain cognizance over the comings and goings of life, I realized what death truly meant. It’s the life bit I still don’t have a grasp on. I was in third grade and I had a crush on a boy from church, a boy that seven years later would commit suicide. A young man I adored in sixth grade was shot in the chest at a party my junior year of high school. While these impacted me directly as they had been a part of my life at one point time, there was one death that shook me so badly I’m not sure I’ve gotten over it.

My mentor’s daughter’s baby was eighteen months old when she died from a car wreck. I went to the funerals even though I hate funerals, it’s instinctive I think. I had watched this beautiful little baby, Dayesha, grow up. That child rarely cried and was always smiling and laughing, she was like a warm pocket of sunshine. So as I walked somberly up to that itty bitty casket I had the strange inability to separate her from that warmth. I smiled as tears ran down my cheek, “Oh Day-Day, baby girl don’t you look so pretty.” Like a little doll she had on her pretty white dress and earrings. I stroked her cheek with the back of my fingers, but there was no warmth there. The precious baby girl was as cold as ice and I snapped. I backed away from the coffin to the closest pew and I bawled. I couldn’t stop it because until that point in my life, death hadn’t been tangible but in that moment feeling all the warmth gone from that little girl’s cheek, death became terrifyingly real.

Though it is a risk for many, death was never a factor for me as I faced cancer. The cancer I had was fantastically rare and save for a few scars you’d never know I had it if I didn’t tell you. Yes, I had cancer. It’s weird to think of now and is scarcely worth mentioning save for the reason I am writing this in the first place. I work at Starbucks and when you see so many people in a day, there are a few that stick out to me. One such woman was completely bald and wore the cutest headband with a giant pink flower. It automatically put a smile on my face and made me wish I could have done that when my head was shaved. Apparently my being bald freaked too many people out so I wore a wig most of the time. I asked her how her treatments were going? She just started telling me how they were going really well and then looked at me strangely because I was looking at her and smiling. I didn’t say a word but pulled down the collar of my shirt on the left side until my telltale pink line was showing. This woman smiled at me and said the two words that only another cancer patient would say after seeing only a scar, “What kind?” “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Stage 4a.” The woman nodded with a smile and introduced herself as Kay.

Kay and I had a strange friendship, she praised God that I was healed and healthy and I was so proud of her that she wasn’t vain and wore her bald head proudly. Kay just laughed, “Them wigs are hot.” I told her I was still working at Starbucks while I was receiving treatment, so I had to wear something for the sake of the customers. Kay just shook her head and laughed, “Oh honey, I’m too old to care about a silly thing like what people freak out about.” It turns out that Kay’s husband had been my health teacher in high school. Every time Kay came through my drive through window, it brightened my day, like a bald beam of sunshine just for me. We were kindred spirits she and I. It’s something that cancer does to people. While people say “I understand what you’re going through,” they don’t. They can’t and that’s okay. My best friend goes to church with them and told me that yesterday Kay went to the hospital because her liver was failing and told me to pray as they were all praying, that she would make it through. That still small voice spoke inside of me and whispered, “Kay’s going home tomorrow.” I couldn’t tell my friend that as she drove off to the hospital to see her for what I knew to be her last hours. So rather than praying for what I knew would not pass, I pleaded something different. “Dear God, let her pass peacefully in a room so full of love that it feels like Heaven before she even closes her eyes. Let her have a smile on her lips and joy in her heart, be with her, don’t let her be afraid.” So when I got the news shortly ago that Kay didn’t make it, I was finally able to mourn. Strange thing about cancer, that some of us make it with hardly a scratch and some of us don’t. I’m not going to pretend I understand that I understand it, nor that I have the answers because I don’t. All I know is that for the brief moments we spent together I loved her and she loved me and few people get to have that chance.

Being the nerd that I am, I thought of an episode of Doctor Who in which The Doctor, this immortal Time Lord able to travel through time and space in a police phone box called the TARDIS. In this episode, he has the unique opportunity to speak to the TARDIS’ soul as it has been placed inside a person. Through varying circumstances, this soul is released from its human body into its true form. She speaks to The Doctor one last time:

“I’ve been looking for a word, a big complicated word, but so sad. I’ve found it now.”

“What word?”Alive. I’m alive.”

“Alive isn’t sad.”

” It’s sad when it’s over. I’ll always be here, but this is when we talked and even that has come to an end.”

C.S. Lewis once said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” I can’t stop crying and that’s OK. While you may not believe as I do and that is your choice, I do find solace in that I believe that who she truly was, that beautiful ray of sunshine has transcended this fleeting mortality to the eternal. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that the wonderful and lovely Kay Sampson is truly home now. The hardest word to say is the one we think we’ll always have tomorrow to express. The hardest word to say is difficult because there is such a profound finality to it. The hardest word to say sometimes has to be expressed so that we may reconcile that in time all things fade from the world. The people we care about, regardless of their brevity in our life, the people we love we will lose. The hardest word to say is more than the end it is a well wishing until we see them again. So on that note I say:

GOODBYE KAY SAMPSON

To Build a Home- The Cinematic Orchestra

BORDERS: A Wake

So as I am sure you have noticed, there is no more BORDERS. As a corporation they no longer exist save for the poor souls in offices signing the loads of paperwork that I am sure accompany the ending of a company. They are closed after, “40 years of igniting the love of reading in generations of customers.” (Mike Edwards, CEO) While most of us shrugged and walked on, moving forward with the inevitability of it, there are those of us who will mourn. It’s only natural when something that we cared about leaves us. Why did they go under? What happened? Well the CEO in an email to subscribing customers said this, “In a nutshell, following continued negotiations and the best efforts from all parties, no bidders presented a formal proposal to keep our company operating as a going concern.” Essentially, BORDERS went under because nobody was willing to save them. Granted, it would have been a financial risk, I understand that. Books, it has been said, are dying. In the world of mass media and Nooks and Kindles and visual over-stimulation, not as many people read books for simple recreation anymore. Why bother, when you could just buy the e-book on Amazon?

I, for one, adored BORDERS. The one in Turkey Creek was my favorite. I enjoy attending midnight premiers of movies, decking out in costume and enjoying the movie with the hard-core fans. After eating, we’d have hours to spend before the line even started, it’s 9pm on a weeknight, where else was there to go? Even in costume, people glanced but didn’t stare and there’s something kind of peaceful about being among your own people. I’d spend hours in BORDERS, perusing the isles, buying tasty beverages I could get from my own place of work for free, utilizing the free wi-fi to create literature of my own, browsing the graphic novels and hoping one day I’d be able to afford all the many titles that I wished to own. From time to time, I’d find something on clearance that I couldn’t pass up. You know, like a paper weight that was made out of glass and glowed in the dark. (I never said I was practical) I’ve gone to midnight book releases at that store, discovered new authors, bought beautiful notebooks that are now full of stories of my own, I bought my first Moleskin notebook there. I could spend the day just being there, writing, because there is something about that place, about any bookstore that fosters creative energy, ignites it, or at least it does for me.

I told a friend that they were closing and she said, “Oh no. I love that place, it’s a great place to hang out.” I felt my heart sink a little. I suppose that was a part of the company’s problem, it was a great place to hang out. I thought back on every excursion I took there. More times than not it wasn’t to buy something and I wasn’t alone in that. There were teenage girls looking at the young adult section, giggling over the puzzles and pencil holders that featured beautiful and unobtainable boys. There were grown men taking over entire tables in the cafe to write business proposals. There were students (usually medical) who sat for hours doing research and homework. There was a young man I knew who would go there and read books every week and never had any intention of buying them because he never had to.

So when I found out that they were closing their doors, I mourned. My little brother scoffed at my strange attachment to a corporation. It’s not so much the corporation as what the corporation was, what it stood for. It was a bookstore. I’d mourn if any bookstore was closing, much less one in which I spent so much time. I am a bookworm, I have been my entire life. I read Romeo and Juliet in third grade and even though I didn’t understand all of it, I could appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the story. I would read in class in fourth grade because I had read ahead and already knew what the teacher was talking about. (Yeah, I was one of those kids) I was scolded for doing so and because I told him that it wasn’t smart to discipline somebody for increasing their knowledge particularly when the subject that he was teaching on was something I had already read about extensively, he gave me detention and didn’t let me go into the gifted program since it required the student’s teacher to provide a recommendation. I found it highly ironic now, but then I was angry. He told me specifically that it was because I had been disrespectful by reading in class and had argued with him in front of the other students, not because I wasn’t qualified. Nice. It didn’t dissuade me from reading. So I have always had a soft spot for books and as a result for the vendors who sold them.

As with any ‘going out of business’ situation, there was a ‘going out of business’ sale. I went once a week. One particular trip I was able to procure a notebook and all of Shakespeare’s major plays in book form for under twenty dollars at a saving of seventy five dollars. I was beyond ecstatic about that. With each progressive visit, the shelves grew increasingly bare. The Seattle’s Best cafe was gone within a week. The glass partition that separated me from a particularly beautiful barista boy was gone but so, of course, was he. Each empty shelf stood like a sarcophagus paying homage to what once was. I paused among the people walking up and down the empty isles, searching silently. There were little huddles as they searched out something familiar, something friendly in the somethings that were already gone. I hing my head and chuckled, I knew this scene all too well. This was more than a sale. This was a wake.

So the pictures within this blog were taken the day after they closed. I went to visit one last time and anything that I recognized was gone and the inside was empty and barren. A place that had caused me so much happiness was now eerie and quiet. I peeked through the glass doors, carefully reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten were there. I had hoped that like my beloved Knoxville Pearl, BORDERS would pull up out of its nosedive and remain open, but it wasn’t to be. It broke my heart and in the corner of the window was a sign that said: Coming Soon: The Ham Store. I scoffed and fumed. That would be the story of my life, something I once adored gets replaced not by something similar or enjoyable, but by something I’d rather never step foot through the doors. I hate ham. I hate ham so much.

So now it’s over. BORDERS is gone. Mind you, directly after leaving Turkey Creek, I went over to Barnes and Noble and walked through the isles. They weren’t so different really and if I squinted just enough it was like being in BORDERS again. I promptly got a Barnes and Noble card and resolved that it was going to be all right. Maybe I was being overly sentimental, but maybe I’m not the only one. A girl next to me accidentally pulled out her BORDERS card as she was paying. I looked over as she blushed and she looked at me. I smiled sadly and she nodded, almost like she understood. I mourn BORDERS in my own way as does anybody. I’m not sure which stage I am in the cycle of grief, but I am pretty sure I am nearly to acceptance.

When the Towers Fell

It came upon me far more suddenly than I was expecting. That’s always the way it happens isn’t it? There are such significant events that impact our lives in ways that we cannot describe, and we swear to ourselves that we will remember, that we must remember. Then the day of commemoration comes upon us and we realize that it did so with our scarcely noticing. They say that each generation has an event that they will be able to remember with detail where they were when it happened, what they were wearing and how they felt about it. JFK’s assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the moon landing, all of these events are etched into the hearts and minds of those that experienced them. My generation has such an event and it is this event that we commemorate today; September 11, 2001, the day that the Towers fell.

It has been ten years. That is so surreal to me. It almost feels like it was yesterday and oh yes, I remember. Where were you when the Towers fell? Ten years ago I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school. I was such a dork back then, a nerdy and awkward pubescent girl who was too smart to be well liked. I was wearing jeans, hiking boots and a green shirt. We were sitting in my second period English class when a teacher from across the hall burst into our room, “They just flew a plane into the Trade Towers. Turn on your TV! America is under attack!” The woman ran to the next room and we all looked at the teacher, she looked scared. We were scared. As we turned on the TV, it was on ESPN, so we switched it to the closest news station. We didn’t say a word but watched the pillows of smoke and the looping film of the plane’s descent and the subsequent explosion as it collided with the first tower. One girl started crying because her uncle worked there and asked if she could leave and call her Mom. The teacher simply nodded and when the bell rang to signal the class change we just sat there looking at each other. The teacher’s voice cracked, “You should probably go to your next class.” We all got up from our seats and the halls were abuzz with everybody talking, those who hadn’t gotten the announcement heard now and we were all rushing to their next class. The TV was already on in my Economics class and Mrs. Bauman declared that though today was going to be a review day for a test we were going to have then next day, the test would be put off.

We wanted to cheer about it, any day a text was delayed was a good day, but not today. Cheering seemed like the opposite of what we should do. Mrs. Bauman muted the news for a brief second. “These images are probably going to be disturbing, if you don’t want to see them, you can call your parents and have them come and get you. Any of you can do that and it will not be counted against you,” she paused, “they are saying that another attack is probably going to happen and we are pretty high on the list of possible targets, so if you want to call your parents and have them get you, that is also fine.” Oak Ridge is nothing if not a target..for a lot of things. We watched in wonder as she turned the mute off. We watched the falling man and we watched the towers collapse. We watched the brave men and women of the NYPD and the NYFD as they fought to find survivors, to find hope. A friend turned to me, shaking her head, “Nothing is going to be the same after this. ” She was right.

While so many other people wanted revenge, wanted the people who did this to pay, I couldn’t help but think of all the kids whose Dads weren’t coming home, of the husbands whose wives wouldn’t be coming to dinner that night. It’s insane to think about it. That’s all you heard about for the next few weeks as the plane crashed into the towers again and again. It was nauseating after a while. In its own way, America has survived, Americans have continued on with their lives, but every year on this day we remember. We mourn those that we lost and we try to heal. Facebook and Twitter updates carry the commemoration. We visit the memorials all across the country. There’s one in Oak Ridge, right in front of the high school. A mangled piece of metal from the towers in the shape of a dilapidated cross. It’s been painted to keep it from rusting, but there it is. We pass by it and we remember. Where were you? Where were you when the Towers fell?

Gothic literary movement doesn't wear eyeliner

Imagine for a moment that literature were capable of becoming a human being. Rather than living its life in chronological order as every human does (save for the case of Mr. Button, but all sorts of weird things happen in Cajun country), literature would be stuck as a perpetual teenager. It's like those kids you knew in high school that could never decide what group they were a part of. One day they were the smartest kids in class and when that became unpopular, they decided they wanted to be jocks though they didn't have an athletic bone in their body. They adapted despite it and were accepted for a time, but soon found that it wasn't who they wanted to be anymore so they bought a nice Nikon camera and took pictures of dandelions and allured every beautiful creature who walked past them. Soon it was too much work to paint things as lovely and the world as some sort of waterglobe with flowers and well wishes so they focused on the newly discovered idea that life is pain and painted their nails black, wore oddly tight pants and put so much eyeliner on that they looked like a raccoon had a few too many tequilas and woke up swearing that there were demonic voices in its waking unconsciousness. Yeah, literature would be pretty much like that.

http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/lit/literaryterms/section5.php

Literature goes through phases in an ever changing flux of characteristics while still maintaining its heart and soul. So...maybe literature is like Doctor Who? No? Maybe? I think so. Much like everybody has 'their Doctor' and everyone had the group in high school that they most identified with and spent excessive time believing that our little circle was the only group of people that would accept us. While I was never one of them (my Mom would've loved it/ killed me she's...weird) I was most fascinated and drawn to those Goth kids. I suppose I had it coming (Mom comes from Cajun country) but being drawn to the darkness is in my nature. The Gothic (literary) movement is the namesake of the popular teen angst ridden trend perpetuated by the color black. Which is fantastically appropriate considering the literary movement was marked by darkness and the supernatural. Where the 'emo movement came from I can't be sure and it didn't even exist when I was a teenager and I'm not even that old. I don't get it and I don't think it gets it either.

I think it's hilarious personally. Regardless, I find the Gothic literary movement to be beautiful and haunting. I suppose I'm a sucker for a movement that while holding tenatively to it's Romantic roots took a departure to the Dark Side. Gothic Fiction is considered to be primarily from 1764-1820 and featured writers that remain some of the greatest in the realm of horror; Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allen Poe. The significance of this particular movement is that while it kept most of its roots in Romanticism it began the departure from the movement which made way for movements like Realism, Naturalism and Modernism. It also popularized the idea of the romanticized vampire and my goodness, where would this world be without that?

http://cheezburger.com/View/53733635

Despite the fact one poor Irish man would roll over in his grave over what has been done to his beautiful creation, the Gothic literary remains one of the most pervasive in modern culture, be it British or otherwise. (Sometimes stupidity truly is universal)

Oh Knoxville what have you done?

There are those gems in Knoxville, those beautiful little places that earn a place in our hearts. They are those little hole in the wall spots, not a franchise but one of a kind and unique. These places become a sort of second home, a sanctuary and a place where you bring friends and family because sometimes the truly great secrets need to be shared. These strange and sweet solaces offer us a place to be ‘safe’ to be ourselves, even if it is a little Chinese restaurant where they know you like lo mein instead of rice or the video game store where they call you up to make sure you want to pre-order the new Assassin’s Creed because they already put your name on the list they just wanted to double check or the bar where they have your drink ready when you get there because they called you at work to make sure you’d be there. Like a modern Cheers, it is the place where everybody knows your name. Places like that are hard to find and apparently they are even harder to keep.

Case in point: The Knoxville Pearl. If you have been to the Old City and walked down East Jackson you have probably walked right past it, maybe you have even looked inside and all you could see were the vibrant colors on the wall and kept on walking. It’s nestled right in between the Pilot Light and Barley’s and if you blink you miss it. The Knoxville Pearl is a cereal bar, yes a cereal bar. It does all you can eat cereal in nearly any assortment you can imagine and a great variety of milks. They also sell pudding and oatmeal and Pop-Tarts and pop (soda I guess most people around here call it) and their most interesting offering: bubble tea. For those of you who don’t know bubble tea is (which is likely anybody reading this) it is either a fruit or milk based iced tea with tapioca balls at the bottom. It is an acquired taste, sure, but let me let you in on something: The Knoxville Pearl is my great gem. It took me forever to find it, this mysterious cereal bar that nobody seemed to know where it was, but everybody knew about it. The first time I went I even created a Facebook event called “Search for the Pearl” (the Knoxville Pearl without consequence has a cardboard cutout of Captain Jack (Sparrow not Harkness, but if they did it would be doubly awesome and quickly stolen) alluding to perhaps the play on words in the name). The Knoxville Pearl with its cartoon characters and oddly painted walls, broken piano, coloring books and games with missing pieces is my true happy place. Bubble (or boba) tea is my Kryptonite, I will drink glasses of it until I am sick (which I inevitably do). I spent Halloween there and birthdays and my friends’ bachelorette parties. The Knoxville Pearl was my happy place, my safe place. I say ‘was’ because as of Saturday for reasons that I do not yet know, The Knoxville Pearl is closing.

To say that I am heartbroken is a bit of an understatement and let me tell you why. The Knoxville Pearl was one of the last ‘safe’ places to hang out at night. Any other place even open that late is either a bar, a club, or sells waffles. I am not a club kind of girl. I can dance but attractive boys intimidate me, but so do unfamiliar social settings. Oh sure I could put out the air of confidence, but this is another discussion for another time. Bars can be scary places at night and since the list of my friends who are night owls is short, drinking alone is not something I want to do. I’m not one of ‘those girls’ who can just go to a club or mingle with complete strangers, not easily. Clubs and bars and often 24 hour breakfast joints scare me…Waffle Houses scare me. The Knoxville Pearl is/ was different. You could hang out there for hours and eat a Pop-Tart and not be bothered save for the occasional curious onlooker. An onlooker would occasionally come in as we sat on couches watching adult swim or better yet, a drunk. Yes, Old City is simply full of them particularly on the weekend and sometimes one would wonder in drunk out of their mind murmuring about how their friends left them and all they wanted was to find a place to pee and odd comments about hamsters. I wish I was making this up. The owners (who are wicked cool anyways) will get them coffee (often for free because they’ve not the presence of mind to find their wallet) and let them sober up on one of the many couches. This place is a beautiful place full of weird things and as of Saturday it will be gone.

I am not sure why they are closing. It could have something to do with the fact that the rent is getting hiked up for downtown Knoxville businesses. Maybe they don’t want to raise their kids in an often scary neighborhood. I wish I could save this wonderful place single handedly, but it is unfortunately too late for that. I suppose Knoxville is not big enough for a little cereal bar joint that sells bubble tea. Could we, as Knoxville, have done more to save it? Probably. The reason that they’re closing doesn’t matter all I know is that I will be there on Saturday to send them off, you should come and if you do late that night you will see me, not only me but others (including my brother and new sister in law) who have come to adore this place as much as I do. If you see me, say hello. Aside from being a little creeped out, I will secretly love the fact you came.

The picture? Cherry-lime bubble tea and Kix; midnight snack of champions and possibly my favorite meal. Oh and just so you know, in the unlikely case they are selling them, I call dibs on the ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ tables.

And That's How I Found Bird Seed In My Underwear...

Weddings. The very word stirs different emotions in different people. I have already written a blog about why I don’t hate weddings. Let me tell you something that I do hate: strapless dresses. Sure I know that most of them come with those little bitty straps that you can attach in, but they are for all intensive purposes completely useless. Bra straps are not that tiny (which kind of defeats the purpose of having straps at all). Now apparently guys find strapless dresses and tube tops “sexy”. Sure, if shoulders are your thing (I happen to think I have very pretty shoulders) but here is my real problem with these items of clothing: I am not small chested. Maybe you cute little A and B cups can pull off the look, but I don’t care how great your strapless bra is, gravity will always always win. As much fun as constantly having to pull everything up is, I am awkward enough without having to worry about my dress pulling a Janet Jackson (an old reference I realize, but you understand what I mean, so it’s still valid if outdated).

It is wedding season in case you are not aware. The wedding in question was that of my younger brother this past weekend. I was wearing a (you guessed it) strapless dress and in all fairness the bride was kind enough to let me choose my own dress. This is awesome for so many reasons. Firstly, sometimes in an effort to match the wedding colors colorful monstrosities the shade of which should never be on a girl as pasty as I am. Secondly, one dress does not fit all. I am rather…curvy and the matron of honor was pregnant and the other bridesmaid was a lean and fit athletic girl. Yeah…that wouldn’t work if it were one single dress style. So I brought it on myself really. I know this and I will come to terms with it. Thank God for Victoria’s.

I have now been a bridesmaid a total of five times. Yes five. At my now sister’s (and I say that because I hate the term in-law. I love her like a sister and she is a part of my family, ergo, sister’s) bachelorette party one of my friends, I dare say one of my best friends said, “So Alicia, are you working on 27 dresses?” I love her, please don’t misunderstand that, but I wanted to punch her in the mouth. Yes, I am one of those “always a bridesmaid…” girls right now. While we’re at it, this weekend I have caught six, yes six bouquets. Used to be I wouldn’t try, they would just seem to come to me or I would catch it before it hit the ground because the other girls avoided the silly thing. I couldn’t even sit it out because inevitably I get called out and dragged up there. Yes, thank you so much for that wonderful reminder ladies. I somehow have brides that throw it practically right at me, but I didn’t really want to catch it. Now, my competitive drive takes over and I just want to beat everybody else at one of the suckiest games ever invented. By the way, do you know why they throw the bouquet? In medieval times a bride was considered to be especially lucky on her wedding day. This was so strong a belief that at the end of the ceremony the single women of the crow would rush her and try to rip her dress off of her. So the tradition of throwing the bouquet to the single ladies to appease them so they wouldn’t rip the bride’s dress to shreds/ trample her to death (which happened rather frequently back then). So I must be extraordinarily lucky by now or something like that. I’ve kept a few. I think I’ll burn them on my wedding day.

Ah yes, to the title of this whole thing. There is the tradition of throwing rice (which has been changed because apparently birds will blow up if they eat it, which is totally not true and has been proven to be a myth because birds eat that stuff in the wild, but oh well) and now we throw birdseed. I personally prefer blowing bubbles. Why? Bubbles don’t hurt. Birdseed does. (Rice/ birdseed was thrown for luck and to represent fertility in the marriage…in case you were wondering.) So the tradition goes that the friends/ family of the couple makes a tunnel to the car the couple will be taking and the birdseed is thrown. There is one very crucial flaw with this: there are people on the other side of the couple and most people have no aim/ believe it is a practice for MLB. So as these stinging little shards started hitting me, I batted them away and I’m sure I looked a bit like Raoul Duke in the desert. Now batting away birdseed is ridiculously ineffective and inevitably (another curse of strapless dresses and big chests) a decent amount went down my dress. How did it end up in my underwear? Well, I’m not quite sure on that one to be honest. I suppose a combination of most of it getting caught in the top of my dress and perfect timing as the seeds fell had something to do with it. Oh well.