Hello Old Friends!

I am a writer. Who doesn't write. Can anyone say oxymoron?

This is ridiculous. It's pathetic. I am the busiest human on the planet. I am a full time student- part time college- part time high school. I am a personal assistant for a child with autism. I am a daughter. A sister. A girlfriend. A SOFTBALL PLAYER. And a writer.

A writer.

A writer.

A writer.

I've been toying with the idea of reinventing my blog and changing it into a place where no one will be able to find me. I would just be another name in cyberspace who floats evasively in and out of the web. In some ways I want to disappear and leave all of the pain and excitement this blog has held for me. I don't want all of you to connect that starstruck girl of a year ago with the jaded person I am today. I want to shut the door on time and not carry any of myself into the future. But in the arms of the one I love, I came to realize that to forget the past would be to forget myself and with that, all of my dreams and aspirations, the things that make me human. No doubt I've have my fare share of FML moments, but those moments are past. This is present and I am a genuinely happy, satisfied, confident person. I am blessed. Simply put, those FML moments should never happen to anyone else, and if all I can do at this point is admit that simple fact, why then I believe that I have completed the first step to looking into the mirror and seeing not the scars left by others, but realizing the person I want to become. And so, Dear Readers, we now get to continue on in this merciless journey called life, through the joy and the tears, the chaos and the ungodly silences, together. Me and You, Babe.

A Girl You Should Date

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick.

Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

-nonamerah.wordpress.com-

Living and Dying and Breathing and Laughing (all at the same time)

I give up! Life was so much easier when I was 12! Not saying that I want to go back, but wow! Life is even more insane and unpredictable than what everyone said! Here's what I say... Life is a game of chance. Sometimes you win. Most of the time you lose. And when you do lose, you pick yourself up and play again, right? Like any true gambler. I lost, okay? I get that. And here's where my next gamble begins. I want to... Cry? Laugh? Breathe? Shower? Eat Sushi? Bake cupcakes? Read a tearjerker? Hijack a car? Grab a mocha? Disappear for a few days? Laugh again? The fact is, I have no idea. My mind is a mess of thoughts that I've decided don't have to make a lot of sense right now. Long term, though, I need a list! A list of all the things I need and want to do in this world so that everybody knows I was here-- my Bucket List of sorts, except not, because I'm invincible; my would-be Mission Impossible List if I believed in the impossible; I guess it's just going to be called my life.

I'm LivingInFeverishExpectation of:

1. Blogging more
2. Drinking better coffee
3. Learning to snowboard
4. Seeing an actual set of human remains!!
5. Having a book on the Best-Seller list
6. Drinking a Mocha in the Oval Office.
7. Watching the sunset set from under the Eiffel Tower
8. Driving at Nascar
9. Getting a tan in the middle of winter
10. Burying a treasure chest
11. Digging up the treasure chest 50 years later
12. Making love on an airplane
13. Sitting on Abe Lincoln's big toe
14. Walking around town with LOSER stamped on my head
15. Giving birth
16. Meeting the Queen of England
17. Watching the 75th Anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera LIVE with my BFF
18. Eating pizza in Italy
19. Rubbing an authentic Buddha's belly
20. Making sushi in Japan
21. Petting a deer
22. Making friends with a blind person
23. Taking cooking classes in Paris
24. Watching an infant turn into an adult
25. Loving unconditionally
26. Finding someone who makes me feel safe always
27. Getting to the top of the Empire State Building
28. Riding the biggest roller coaster in the world
29. Petting a giraffe
30. Kissing a tiger
31. Taking comfort in knowing the Truth
32. Coming to peace with my past
33. Finding a way to forgive
34. Trusting a stranger
35. Making love in a Starbucks bathroom
36. Kissing a fool
37. And maybe a couple of frogs
38. Finding a prince
39. Learning to give more than I take
40. Taking a picture inside the second O of the HOLLYWOOD sign
41. Swimming in the ocean
42. Ice skating in Central Park
43. Living in the city
44. Going to the Olympics
45. Meeting the most powerful man alive
46. Being Belle in Disneyland for a summer
47. Having a Motown party
48. Giving an advocacy speech for children with Down-Syndrome
49. Learning another language
50. Teaching a whole class of third-graders how to understand long division
51. Being on a game show
52. Writing a letter to the President
53. Being in a movie
54. Making someone happy
55. Touching someone's heart
56. Seeing a crime scene
57. Wishing upon a shooting star
58. Staying at the Palmer House and pretend I'm Rose from Titanic
58. Meeting my Jack.
59. Learning to like melons.
60. Going on a serious spending spree
61. Owning an iPhone
62. Getting kissed at the top of the Statue of Liberty
63. Eating lunch at the top of the Saint Louis Arch
64. Raising a child
65. Doing relief work in a third world country
66. Building a deck
67. Starting a book club
68. Leading a hike
69. Getting to the top of Mount Everest
70. Getting back down from the top of Mount Everest
71. Riding a stallion
72. Writing a poem that rhymes
73. Going sledding behind a horse
74. Never doubting my self-evidence
75. Never looking back
76. Never forgetting the ones who love me
77. Making homemade doughnuts
78. Challenging Martha Stewart to a bake off 
79. Working for Cake Boss
80. Having my own cupcake business
81. Having a giant murder board for plotting the best stuff out
82. Editing a book
83. Managing a store
84. Leading an escapade
85. Understanding the meaning of selfish
86. Spending the night in the desert
87. Meeting a former slave
88. Touring the Underground Railroad
89. Planting a garden
90. Spending a week in silence
91. Learning to drive a cemi-truck
92. Convincing my grandpa that girls can so drive tractors!!!
93. Dreaming bigger
94. Thinking louder
95. Speaking less
96. Listening more
97. Posing for a portrait
98. Running away for three weeks
99. Loving a hero
100. Loving myself


P.S.... There is this video competition sponsored by the Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation, and I entered a piece entitled "Pointing The Reins". I intended to capture my sister's beauty, her potential, her ability to love and to learn, as well as the complexity of our relationship as sisters. (K-Pony's in it too!) There's two awards to be presented: Judges' Choice and Viewers' Choice... If so inspired, please follow this link to my YouTube Channel and press "like"!!!

Rainy Morning News

Don't you just love thunderstorms in the morning? The ones with big, black thunderheads and ferocious thunder. They always make me feel as though a mocha frapp, a morning in bed, and a fabulous book is the only thing I'd ever need. Relaxing. But when staying in bed is simply not an option, thunderstorms can be rather irritating, especially when you have ten outside paddocks to muck, especially at 7am. And then you realize a 1600 lb animal knocked out the window in her stall, and her neighbor broke a board in his stall while attempting to m-u-r-d-e-r her. Oh, the joys of horsemanship!

But those things are mere roadblocks in my early-morning-thunderstormish-kind of-day. But have no fear. The sun came out when I went out on a limb and quit my job! This might sound crazy, but I am ecstatic! First of all, because I was brave enough to quit to my boss's face, and secondly, because a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. True, I start my new job in less than a month, but at least it won't include wet mornings, broken windows, or flies. Sigh... Life continues to be full of surprises.

Sidenote: Sanity Mochas has started yet another blog, except this one I swear I will actually write on. It is entitled Inside Adrianna's Books, and it is all about my beautiful little sis, Adrianna Rose. I can't wait to hear what everyone's thoughts are!

365 Days Later....

365 days ago... What a powerful set of words. A whole year. That seems like forever when you think of it as 8,760 hours or 525,600 seconds. But I'm not choosing to think about a year as forever. It really is only 12 months, four short seasons. That hardly seems like enough time to accomplish all of the things that "a year" should contain. Happiness. Excitement! Love. Pain. But most of all a year should contain memories. Memories are the bones of a lifetime.

Me, I've made the last year of my life... well, memorable. Not necessarily in a good way, but the year's events have definitely shaped the bones of my figurative being. But, oh the lessons I've learned!

365 days ago I was lying in the bed of our local ER. It was the day before my birthday and my little sister had inadvertently damaged a nerve in my neck, an accident that still presents complications. I remember being transferred from one bed to an x-ray table, back to the bed, then to another x-ray table. Every time my neck moved in the slightest I wanted to scream from the pain, but I did not let the siring electric wires in my neck bubble forth in any other form than silent tears that ran down my cheeks in a steady flow and caused all the nurses to whisper when they thought I couldn't hear. I was mostly crying because of the pain, but also because of a feeling that had grown inside of me for months, fostered by bad, bad, bad association. At the time, I couldn't have told you that feeling meant, but I can now. It was emptiness. I cried over things that I thought I wanted even though I honestly didn't even know what I was asking for.

Anyway, after the hospital staff finally determined that strong pain killers would mask the pain long enough for the muscles in my neck to stop going into uncontrollable spasms, me and my mother drove around for hours trying to find a 24 hour pharmacy. You'd be surprised just how many pharmacies close at ten. However, we finally did find one, and I spent the next few days, including my birthday, floating in and out of extreme laxness and unconsciousness.

You know, I don't really think I ever came out of that laxness. I became lax about my friends, my attitude, my morals. But 365 days later, I can tell you that I am very much concious. Neither does my neck hurt, nor do tears are fall from my eyes. The drugs have finally worn off. Finally!

Now, for that which I really wanted to tell you. I accomplished something today! Something that seems like the best, most satisfying thing in the entire world. Are you ready for this?

With the patient and loving assistance of my fabulous big sis, I perfected the art of parallel parking! What can I say? I'm a complete and total geek! (Not a dork...;) But having something to be proud of, no matter how small, seems like the only thing I could possibly ask for.

Could it be that the only thing I really need to find is an accomplishment in every day? Hmm.. Interesting. Now I'm intrigued. What did you accomplish today? How about tomorrow?

I would love to tell you that for the next 365 days I will write to you everyday and tell you what I've accomplished in life, but I can't. The only thing I can guarantee is that the 525,600 seconds of my life are going to be filled with contentment. It's a word that means being satisfied with having nothing more exciting to blog about than parallel parking. It's a word that means trying hard to keep your life simple, to the point, purposeful. It's a word that leads to true happiness.

Contentment means taking each day for what it's worth.

With that said, tomorrow is going to be a great day. I get to visit my ponies, and I get to hang out with my lovely grandmother. Life is good.   :)

Yesterday

Yesterday was the first day she took Thunder out on trails alone. Yesterday she found out what it is to experience true pain.

Yesterday my stomach muscles got a thorough workout as I strained against the back-and-forth motion of my Grandma's rusty lawn mower. Yesterday I was kissed by the sun.

Yesterday she felt her adrenaline beating through the ends of her toes. 

Yesterday was a good day, for me.

But for her, it was the start of never ending ride, whose haunting eyes will follow her always.

The wind was blowing the strands of her salt and pepper hair in swirls that had escaped the confines of her helmet and pony tail. She smiled as the the sun hit her face. She knew in this fresh light the freckles she had tried to conceal in her younger days would be more prominent than ever, and she didn't care. The only souls to care about her blemishes were herself and of course, Thunder, who was walking languidly after their hour long lesson.

The first truly warm day of the season. She might have even classified it as hot if it weren't for the gentle breeze that moved the delicate branches of the newly budding trees. Thunder had been ornery today. The warm weather had molded his usually patient attitude into on of something like defiance. Not the the vicious kind, but the intolerant kind. He didn't want to work, and he had let her know by spooking, jumping, and bolting past everything he could discern outside of the area walls. But that was over now. They had ended the lesson on a good note. Not great, but good.

Now they walked around in the luscious front pasture. The instructor had left. The other boarders had left. Alone at last. Her cell phone, which was sure to be buzzing incessantly, had been abandoned in the right cup-holder of her car. The world had been left behind, and it felt wonderful! The constant rustle of grass under Thunder's hooves were the perfect rhythm to extinguish the last of her concerns, at least for the moment.

But then something was wrong. Instead of a comforting rhythm, Thunder's hooves produced a sporadic, unsettling beat, and ever so slightly he heaved underneath of her. He was obvious trying to get the point across that strolling in the pasture all alone was not his idea of relaxing. Nevertheless, she kicked him on, but she couldn't help the nervous feeling in her stomach growing into what felt like a baseball. She felt her shoulders fall forward as he no longer danced underneath of her, but leaped in the air, a motion that curved sideways, forward, and toward the sky all at once. Her confidence was most definitely shaken, and she took his hint. She turned his head towards the barn, and the rest of his body followed in tune. But instead of settling him, it only made him fight the bit even more. He tried to run through her hands, but she wouldn't let him. 

From a bystanders perspective, she probably looked like the typical beginner. Sky high heels, slumped shoulders, weakened core, and too tight and too high hands. A disaster in the making. 

Thunder, on the other hand, gave the persona of a pro. He was going back to the barn, even if that meant loosing a hundred pounds or so off the sway of his back.

He picked up a jog that fell more like a stationary bounce. "Easy," she said, but the nervousness in her seat did anything but calm Thunder. "WHOAH!" she yelled this time, her voice cracking with fear. The reins in her hands jerked against what was obviously Thunder's teeth, and he retaliated by lunging into a full blown buck. Her balance was immediately thrown off kilter and she desperately grabbed for something, anything that would save her fall. Thunder utilized every ounce of power underneath his monstrous body to project into another buck, even more massive than before. Unbeknown to him, he would have only had to sidestep in the opposite direction, and she would have liberated him to his own devices. All the same, she fell. A very short fall. She didn't even have time to realize she was falling really, until she hit the ground. She felt her ankles give way beneath her, and she tipped forward only to find the world go green beneath her. Grass. Thunder was already half way to the barn, showing no signs of coming back. There was only one thing to do. Get up! She tried, but her feet weren't there! But that was impossible. Of course they were there! Then she saw the blood, and she began to doubt her certainty.

This story is non-fiction, embellished by my own imagination, but it is fact. The only problem is, I can't begin to imagine the rest, but I can tell you the plain facts.

Finding no other way to recieve help, this woman drug herself on all fours across the pasture, which is easily the size of a football field; down the barn isle and into the lounge, where she attempted to use the emergency cell phone. But rather than dialing "911," she accidentally dialed "911*911," which of course did not go through. Instead of trying again, she drug herself to her saddle bag where her keys lay, and back down the barn isle, across the gravel, and into the parking lot where her car sat undisturbed. It is truly a miracle that she did not bleed to death along the way. Either that or pass out from the pain. She called the barn manager, who was on her way home but unable to answer, and her husband, who was an hour away. Then she collapsed in a heap, her knees in the gravel, her head descending below it.

By the time the ambulance arrived, it was obvious both of her legs had been broken. Her left leg was in pieces, most of which were visible through the tattered mess of flesh surrounding them. She has spent the last twenty-four hours in intensive care.

I tell you this story, Dear Reader, with only one intention in mind: to remind you of the dangers of our beloved sport. Horses are horses. We love them, but they will do stupid things. It is spring time! They have been cooped up in the barn all winter and are undoubtedly slightly heard bound. Ride with someone the first few times you go out on trails! And never, ever ride without a cell phone.

No one ever thinks anything bad is going to happen to them. She didn't. I don't. Remind those you love by linking this story to your Twitter, Facebook, or Blog. Remind them that we shouldn't take our life for granted. We only have one.

Baby Doll

I have big news. Something happened less than forty eight hours ago that simply doesn't happen everyday. A new creature was brought into this world, a baby girl. She's an absolute doll, which is how she came to be called Dollie, and she's already too big for me to hold in my arms. She has beautiful red hair, an admirable feature, and kind brown eyes that scream for attention. If she would just stand still, I'm sure you would think she was plastic. She's the perfect baby doll!

I must say that I the hour I had allowed to groom, tack, and ride T-Pony this morning before I left for a long weekend in a suburb of Chicago was not entirely spent on riding. In fact, most of that time I spent on the floor of a stall, stroking Dollie's neck as she fell asleep on her mother's hay.

Lovely Ladies

Isn't she the cutest, littlest, sweetest thing you've ever seen? The very fact that she literally fell asleep in my arms is enough to melt my heart.

For those of you who don't know horses, it is NOT normal for a two-day-old filly to be so comfortable with humans as to fall asleep in their arms. Dollie is the exception to the rule, and I love it!

So dear readers, you see... You are never too old to fall asleep dreaming of your baby doll!