Cobbled Streets

Right Now

Today

Tonight

53°F

FEELS LIKE 53°

56°

HIGH

44°

LOW

Partly Cloudy

Light Rain

Partly Cloudy

For eight years I wanted to go to Paris. I drew pictures of Paris and asked people what Paris rain smelled like. I searched the internet and learned all about Paris and then the places Parisian excursioners travelled after Paris.

Maybe Holland would have had prettier flowers and cleaner streets and kinder people, but I knew that before I ever went to Paris. Paris didn't need me the way it may have benefitted from Van Gogh, but I guess I needed Paris in the way I needed vitamin tablets. I needed Paris in the way I didn't know I needed. 

I visited the Louvre, but I didn't paint there. I tried the baguettes and madelines, but my favorites were still the cupcakes and strawberries. I looked through the museums at the modern art and scoffed at the dots on the canvas. Browsing the guidebooks were a past time in the hotel room, but I never visited the expensive restaurants. 

Paris wasn't about lectures or films or museums or the tourists. Paris was about left turns, rainy evenings, and the small apartments of the french. Paris was about cobbled streets and crowded streets. Paris was about the .0315 percent of the world's population who live there but never about the 2.8 percent who visit the Eiffel Tower. Paris was never about the eiffel tower.

Paris was not a city. Paris was a weather report of 54 degrees and slightly cloudy but looking up tomorrow. Paris was the "Désolé, nous somas firms" sign on the bakery that made me go to the next street over where I tried the best water I've ever had.

From the carrot and the water in the outskirts of the city, I wave salut to the city of Paris. Thank you.

Slam

I grip the stars in my hands and the galaxy slips from my finger cracks. Fate says "there goes pizza and Saturday nights" and 6 o'clock says "there go the formals and home cooked meals." And all the while the calendars say "look at the playgrounds! You can't see the swings? They are too far away."

I didn't decide to gamble with fate until I was old. I have no idea what the inside of a sleeping bag looks like on a park bench at night and that's why I will never know what it is like to be the man from Downtown Salt Lake City... But I know what a pen feels like and I know what cold pillows feel like, but hey! that does not mean I know what it is like to release the oxygen tank. I don't know a lot of things but I know what it is like to sail the skies.

Tomorrow is coming, ladies and gentlemen, and so is fate, and so is 6 o'clock. And even though calendars will still be here, so will yesterday and thank the stars that tomorrow will be here too.

Insecurities

I remember getting glasses in kindergarten. My mom had to walk me in to class because I was so embarrassed. I remember the days that I had to wear a sticky eye patch at home and how I wouldn't go to Chuck-E-Cheeses with Ben because I was wearing my eye patch and a dress so obviously I was a loser.
In third grade I scored a goal during a soccer scrimmage and I was so excited because it was the first goal I had ever made. It was the wrong side.
One time I asked a question in fourth grade and the whole class said "she talks!" and that made me feel so dumb that I never spoke again.
My fifth grade teacher was afraid I didn't have any friends and I was afraid I didn't have any friends, too.
In sixth grade I told my teacher I hurt my ankle so I wouldn't have to play dodgeball against _____ __________ and ____ ____. That was probably a good idea.
I ate lunch by myself mostly every day in Junior High. I pretended I was waiting for somebody but I was not. I only packed half sandwiches because the skinny girls ate half sandwiches.
When high school started I still changed in the bathroom before PE instead of against the locker wall.
I sat a few lunches in the library and read a few books on friday nights.
I remember the days that I felt really lonely, but also inexplicably happy. I don't know anything about rooftops with boys or convertibles with music, but I know a lot about how to use a semicolon and how to be really happy. High school is not a full circle ending but a progression (and thank goodness for that).

How to never blog

1) Develop a really awful case of skewed priorities and grading scales
2) Never check skyward or take anything seriously
3) Do things like check out eight books at the library, but read none, write eight blog posts on your computer, but publish none, or set eight alarm clocks, but wake up to none.
4) Delude yourself into thinking that your high school life's cumulative sleep hours are more important than good grades.
5) Miss a lot of inspiring lessons
6) Get a job and never sleep
7) Take too many hard classes
8) You don't have anything worth saying anyway, so you may as well shut up. Thank you and come again.

How to write a really good blog post:
1) Visit somebody else's blog. Try the links on the side.

High School

Travelling

I hate one hundred percent of the things I post and wish that I could publish something else. Paris was really nice and I found some great tourists- that's one of the advantages of hostels- and the streets are full of fortune cookies and wrappers, but the Louvre was too expensive and the stairs too tiring. There are a lot of stairs in Paris.

Wishing on airplanes

I did infinity amazing blackout poems, but I do not have a camera device and honestly, it wasn't worth it to track one down. So instead, I tracked this lovely bug down on the internet. It's a little inspiring.

Friend of a Friend

This is for the journalists, the jocks, the pre-high school lovers, the ninth grade partiers, the lonely lunch goers, and the juvenile juice box drinkers. This is for those who don’t know who you are like I don’t know who I am. This is it: Life is simple.

I have hoards of advice I could give you because I have been collecting it for years, but this isn’t from your mom or your sixth grade teacher or a fortune cookie. This is just from me, and I don’t know what I am talking about. Nevertheless, this is about high school.

You will find unusual friends in unusual places if you let it happen. Some of them will leave footprints in you heart and some of them won’t, but all of them will teach you something… even if it is about anime or sci-fi novels. It is glorious, but I know that it is also frightening to let that happen.

You will find the thing you love the most when doing the things that scare you most. I think overcoming resistance will make your passions stronger.

I know your life is harder than mine, but if it is worth anything, I have been collecting advice for years. 

Queen of Spades

If I ruled the world, there would be incinerators in all the ladies’ rooms and nobody would crack joints ever. We would all read more and build more concert halls. The nutritionists would include Cheetos with oats and buckwheat at the bottom of the food pyramid along with orange juice and ranch dressing.

We would learn to double-dutch before graduating from elementary school and every child would go on one roller coaster before every birthday because then maybe we would stop being so afraid to grow up. 

Nobody listened when I spoke the first time

Your heart hurts? Well I'm thirsty. The world is fair and so is war.
The funniest thing I ever said was a chess joke in an Australian accent, but I can't tell it to you.
Tonight my cousin was all "Hey dad? Should I get a hoe? and his dad said, "Is it a good hoe?" and we all laughed.