the road not taken

5th

today is savannah's 5th birthday; this is for her:

my dearest savannah,

today is your fifth birthday. what a happy and remarkable day! i write this to you today while you are at school, learning and having fun with your friends.

i'm looking forward to seeing you this afternoon, and bringing the cupcakes you want to share with the rest of your class. i'm so happy that you have other people who care about you to help you celebrate this wonderful day.

i can't believe i've only known you for five short years. i barely remember my life without you in it. i think you have always been here, somewhere if only in my mind. how lucky i am to know you!

things have been so busy and crazy this year. i know you have been kind and patient with me, even though i'm not always home and i don't always have time to do things with you that you like to do. i know it will be more difficult until i finish school, but i know and i promise that giving me the chance to do this will make things so much better for all of us when it is over.

i miss spending time with you, and miss being able to tuck you into bed each night. it will get better and easier, i promise.

i'm looking forward to all the things you might do in the next year, as you continue to amaze me everyday.

thank you for everything you are and everything you share with me. i know that one of the reasons i've done as well in school as i have up until now is because of you, and all that i've learned from you.

i love you with all my heart. and i hope that each birthday you have finds you happier than the one before.

always and forever,
mommy

anticlimactic ...

anticlimactic is a good way to describe my birthday. i am older, and apparently there isn't much more to say than that.

classes are continuing to go well for the most part. i can feel the end slowly creeping up on me, and that is a bit bothersome. i can feel tiny tendrils of stress curling their way into the corners of my life. they are mostly in my periphery, but every once in a while a catch a glance of one at the ends of my sight. and, i worry on them more than i should.

spring is helping the stress a little. the bright warm weather helps to energize me. being able to spend time outside in the fresh air helps too. once again i find myself for being unreasonably thankful that we have a deck to sit on, as well as a table and umbrella for me to enjoy, while spreading out every book, notebook and highlighter i own and do my work there.

i was lucky enough to attend a performance of Stop Kiss on campus during this past week, and i am looking forward to writing my report paper about it. i've not been to a great many plays in my life, but this one was just incredible. i liked it well enough also to be sad that i have no room in my schedule to take a class with the very beautiful and insightful assistant professor who directed this play.

i am loving the new clothes my parents and sister sent me. they are comfortable, and i look too cute -- all preppy and whatnot. are people even "preppy" anymore, or is it something else? i'm not as up on pop culture as i used to pride myself in being.

i look like i fell out of a land's end catalog, and considering that all of my new clothes, with the exception of my levi jean jacket are from land's end... i would suppose that makes total sense.

i had a chance to meet savannah's kindergarten teacher, and she was very nice. i'm looking forward to her working with her next year. it makes me feel good to know about these things ahead of time. and not have to worry over them.

i spent all morning doing homework. go me! i've been having too many lazy days recently, and it really felt good to get some things accomplished, early even.

now i need to go and pick up savannah. i need to get a new printer cartridge as i've already drained the new one from november. who knew there would be so much printing this semester, when i've barely had to write anything at all.

so, i'm off. yay for pretty weather and for being able to spend my whole afternoon out on the deck.

oh man!

both the foo fighters and the offspring will be playing at music midtown the weekend before finals.

(insert pouting here) i wanna go! (end pouting here)

someday, i need to find a frickin' babysitter... and some money. yeah; that would be cool.

the trees are waking up ...

i love the time surrounding my birthday, since i've lived here in georgia. spring begins springing when it is supposed to be doing so... and it is lovely.

i spent many years of my young life looking forward to my birthday through blizzards and snowdrifts, and i do not miss it at all.

this is now the 7th birthday i've spent living in metro atlanta -- and, i think i enjoy it more as each year passes. it's been warming here steadily. the daffodils have been poking up, and they are almost ready to bloom. and yesterday, while wallace was driving savannah and then myself to school, we discovered that the trees are waking up...

my insightful little girl has been obsessed with the trees during this past winter. when she noticed they were bare in the late fall, she kept telling me -- 'mommy, the trees are dead.' now, i know this child has no clear idea what dead is exactly, but i told her -- 'no, sweetie. the trees are only sleeping.'

this segued into her other thoughts and questions involving trees -- 'mommy, i think the trees need blankets, and teddy bears to sleep with!' this, of course, made me laugh and laugh. i adore the logic of small children, that is one of the wonderful things about getting to spend so much time with them.

daddy, savannah and i oohed and ahhed at the beautiful blooming dogwoods on the way to school yesterday -- a few tulip trees as well. and it was wonderful to see the trees finally waking up. stretching and yawning as those who've been sleeping for a while often do... we will watch as the grass, trees and flowers will burst back into the colors of spring that i love so much. the world will be awash in green once again, which always means new beginnings and rebirth to me in so many ways.

i am also feeling quite green this year. i have renewed optimism and excitement this spring for myself. school is wonderful, and it keeps me moving forward on the path to making my life so much better.

i look forward to celebrating the 10 year anniversary of my 21st birthday. i look forward to shaking off as much negativity of the past 10 years as i am able. and i am looking forward to being reborn on my birthday. because i've never been as happy with myself, as i am today.

and i have so much to do and to continue looking forward. the trees are waking up again, and it feels like i am too.

two things ...

the other day i discovered that poppy z. brite has a livejournal. i've been reading it obsessively for the past couple of days.

see, wallace introduced me to poppy z. brite a few years ago. and she is undoubtedly a great writer, but her early stuff was a bit... too much for me. i have loved horror all of my life, but her chosen themes were not my favorites. i adore vampire erotica, but while i love gay men to death for the most part i do not adore books full of only gay vampire males.

but, at my most basic level, i am a hardcore voyeur. that is probably why i love journals, blogs and the internet so much. i get to lurk from afar. and this is the primary driving force behind my poring over the entirety of her livejournal. i want to know about others. i want to know what they look like, how they think -- or write about personal things. i want to see where they live and what day-to-day life is like. so, i've been trying to glean a clue to any of that, through her online journal.

ironically though, i am not into watching porn. maybe a little girl-on-girl action, occasionally but anything else, no way. i'm just weird like that, i guess. so yeah, i admit that i'm a voyeur.

secondly, just in the interest of fucking around, as i am wont to do during my short break from school... i have assembled for your amusement my states visited map. a lot of these places i would like to return to sometime, as i haven't ever spent a huge amount of time in places other than PA, OH, MD and GA. i love to travel. i do hope to do much more in the future. so, this is where i have been in the U.S.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

a short break ...

i get a break from school -- my spring break, actually. i needed it.

happily, i am just a little over halfway done with this semester. and, things are continuing to go well for me. i am doing well in all of my classes, some better than others, although i'm going to see what i can do make all my grades A's by the end of the semester.

that would be cool.

i've been trying to clean up my house (which has been entirely neglected since starting school) this week. i'm making progress, albeit slow. but, being able to relax without worrying about classes this week has been very nice too.

it continues to amaze me just how much mess one very small person can make in a house. and every time i think she doesn't have a lot of toys or books or clothes -- all i have to do is look around to where they happen to be strewn throughout our house.

i was pleased that savannah knows when her birthday is, as well as how old she'll be. yesterday, someone in target asked her how old she was and she responded by telling her that she would be five soon. she has been asking about party-related things recently, and i've been trying to steer her from a 'spongebob squarepants' themed party to just about anything else.

i blame her father for that, as i know that they both watch spongebob when mommy has evening classes, even though i disapprove.

i am looking forward to 31, much more than i thought i would be. i am really pleased with my own life and the things i'm doing, how could i not be happy about my birthday?

my parents offered to give me clothes for my birthday, which i need desperately... but actually having to pick things out for them to order has been a bit more challenging than i'd orginially thought. maybe someday i'll enjoy clothes shopping, but right now not so much.

i have to go and change so i can pick savannah up from school. this is one of the days i wished that her schoolday was just a bit longer... oh well. i still have a few more days of my break to enjoy.