Blog Completed.

This is my last xanga post.

  In May of 2004, I began an online journal expressing my thoughts, studies, and short histories of my life.  I was barely sixteen years old; I am now nineteen years old, and oh how I have changed.  I give fair warning, you readers who may pass by this post, that being my clingy and emotionally-attached self, this entry is capable of being quite sappy and drawn out.  But you must be patient with me, for this is my last entry in a beautifully long, public journal featuring myself. 
   "Why", you may ask, "are you departing from such a fantastically long traveling with this world known as 'xanga?'"
   Funny you should ask!  I will gladly answer.  First, I am leaving because xanga (how it hurts to say this) is dead.  Xanga is a coffin that I continually refuse to escape.  Second, I am not like the person who first started this blog; and "that person" is anxious to move on and begin fresh in a different area of blogging.  Third, the signs of the time are prompting me to take my leave.  I made an unofficial/unsettled deal with my friend, Caleb, to leave xanga; it is simply time to leave this barren wasteland and to enter green valleys of fresh spring water and antelopes and cantaloupes and little elves with their happy kin. 
    Thank you, xanga, for allowing me to stop and think about my thoughts; to read other's thoughts; to never fear public expression of thoughts; to enjoy the gift of writing. 

    It seems appropriate to include in my last entry, a list of what I hope to accomplish or experience someday.  So, without further ado, I give you my list of "somedays" (in no particular order):

Someday I will:

1.  Go to London, England.
2.  Be married to the most amazing man in the world.
3.  Have a host of children.
4.  See a broadway musical.
5.  Earn a college degree.
6.  Be a mother.
7.  Laugh the hardest I've ever laughed.
8.  See a pyramid (in Egypt, of course) in person.
9.  See New York.
10.  Be the lead in a play.
11.  Not fear auditions.
12.  Play the guitar with great skill.
13.  Learn to skateboard.
14.  Take a road trip with just me and my husband.
15.  Read every book I've ever wanted to read.
16.  Approach a stranger while speaking in either a hick or English accent.
17.  Learn to tap dance.
18.  Go camping.
19.  Spontaneously drive somewhere to surprise a friend.
20.  Have the nerve to read my poems to someone.
21.  Live in a house with a picket fence.
22.  Finish sewing my quilt.
23.  Learn to give without being overly concerned for my own wellbeing.
24.  Not fear showing my feelings.
25.  Have many grandkids and our family reunions will be incredible and joyful. And I will remember writing my list of "somedays" and I will chuckle at how young and naive I was... and I will love every second of it.

   And that completes my last entry.  I will end by treating this as any other entry and giving you a short account of my day. 
    The sun spread across our driveway, over our house, and into my window as I awoke to a beautiful Lord's day.  Today I was home to see the family and go to our most amazing church.  After a God-glorifying service and sermon, dad drove us to 501 Cafe where we enjoyed a delicious lunch.  The weather couldn't have been more beautiful.  On the way to the restaurant and again on the way home, Sally and I (and sometimes mom, dad, or Jenny) made a song out of nearly every sentence that was said... these songs were recalled from childhood tapes that were always in the stereo system of the suburban in our young homeschool days.  Once home, I picked up our cat and he batted his paws at my teasing hands above his face.  Jenny announced that we must go to Target - and so we did.  Home again!  I then went upstairs to my bare room where I took a lovely nap.  I awoke, had coffee, and mom gave me some food supplies to keep me alive and happy while back in College land.  Dad graciously (and randomly, as he always does) told me to fill up Elijah II with gas - oh joy, JOY!  Elijah II was replenished and I sang my way home, accompanied by The Hush Sound and several broadway songs.  Upon reaching home, I surfed my small world of the internet and then proceeded to head to Aspen, a nearby coffee shop.  My Spanish test is tomorrow and I'm not especially looking forward to it.  A little over an hour at Aspen and I had enough.  Now here I am at home, breaking from Spanish and breaking away from a blog I've clung onto like a frightened child; and I've clung for much too long. 

Moving on is a good and healthy thing!  Farewell, O dramatic words of xanga, and goodnight to all of you. 

Rest in peace.  (That was a pun.)

It's times like this when living away from home is the hardest.  I've been helping backstage for Moon Over Buffalo for the past week; the hours are late and I'm exhausted every night.  I feel like there is no time for homework and I also feel like I'm disappointing people right and left.  It's the end of the week and I'm ridiculously emotionally strung right now.  The build-up of exhaustion does nothing to aid this state of being.  And all I want is to be home... and to tell my mom how tired I am.  Then everything would be better.

Being a girl is ridiculous... it just makes emotional trips all the more frequent and all the more emotional.  Oh, Charlie Brown - good grief.

Tomorrow is the LAST STINKING DAY of the STINKING PLAY.  I wish I could bask in the glory of it being the Lord's day, knowing there will be rest.  But I have to stay after the play to help strike.  The entire set will be stripped bare.  May I be granted patience and presence of mind... oh dear.

Our house is the sickest mess right now.  My room looks like... like 5 boys are living in it.  Jensquare (oh I really like this song!  WHOA.  "I've Just Seen a Face" from Across the Universe.  Wow!)  is at the household, abode, dwelling place, etc. and I am here so that upon my return, I will not be stressed with my boyish room and a sink full of the smelliest dishes you've ever sniffed. 

I'm ready to never be backstage crew again.  It's boredom to a T.  What's worse is that it's exhausting... I'm trying to figure out how boredom can produce such exhaustion.  I'm considering taking a nice notebook backstage and I can just journal while I sit there in the blue lights.  Did you know there is a bat that lives backstage?  I believe they've named him Toby.  It's a little disturbing - but, yes, he truly lives back there.

This song sounds like a hallucination.  If hallucination was a song, this would be it.  Strawberry Fields Forever?  They so were high when they wrote this.  I'm sorry.  Now my entry must be rated PG13 for drug references.  Well, don't let your two year olds read my blog, okay?  Oh, wait!  NO ONE is reading my blog!  I should go ahead and take this opportunity to write about my plan to change the world's definition of "precipitation" and "evaporation" forever! NEVER will you see the rain! Never will you feel those wet, pearly drops from the heavens, touch your weary skin, longing for the touch of something from the outside world!  You will fall to pieces in your insanity and drift away on sand because there will be no sea.  Bahaahaaaaaa. 

My poor, lonely blog.  Oh bloggy, I'm sorry.
Off I go to seize the day.

An entry from September 30, 2005:

       "So I'm kind of lonesome tonight.  I want a close friend to be with me and we'd watch a movie together.  If I had an Elijah Springfield, that's what we'd do.  Hooo (that was a sighing sound) Elijah, where are you?  Who are you?  I bet I already know Elijah, I just don't know it's Elijah yet.  Then one day I'll say to my dear friend, "You're my Elijah Springfield."  And he will know who that is because we'll be good friends and then we will become more than good friends and get married.  Maybe instead of asking me to marry him, he will say, "May I be your Elijah?" (hahaha) And I will answer, "You always have been."  It'll be great. 

    I can be such a girl sometimes.  I'm sorry.  I'll try not to have another entry dedicated to my not-even-known future husband.  I just want to know who he is.  That's all.

    Would you like to come over and watch a movie with me?"

Maybe I was a little overly dramatic.  That was just two years ago and it seems like a decade.  I'm not sure why I preferred "May I be your Elijah?" to something like, "Will you marry me?"  If my husband thought he had to be an exact replica of a book-based character, it would not be okay.  Maybe something like, "I'll beat Elijah in the face, I'm better for you.  Marry me," would be more appropriate.  Ha.  Anyway, I re-posted this because it seems to coincide well with what I'm feeling now.  I also re-posted it because xanga is dead and these entries all might as well be private.  I really need to get a new blog.  And now I must go.

Alright, American Government, do your worst.

    Every time I enter xanga-land, I feel a certain void overwhelm me.  This barren land used to be so alive and yield such a lovely crop.  Now it all has withered, and what lives lacks the watering and fruitfulness a comment brings.  I am wondering if, perhaps, I should turn to another source for blogging.  This blog has turned out to be more on the journal side.  If I gave in to adopting a new blog (using a different site, of course) I would dedicate it to the finer thoughts or facts in life rather than the daily grind of my own; except my days aren't very grinding... they're just monotonous.

     I auditioned for the first time in my life last Tuesday.  By "first time," I mean, it was my first time to audition like a normal person: prepare my own monologues.  I positively despised finding my own material to work with.  Two days before the audition, the realization of what would take place washed over me and a nervous flood of anxiety ensued.  When Tuesday finally arrived, I could hardly wait until audition time came.  Normally, before going on stage I receive butterflies of excitement and a satisfying feeling of "in your face"-ness which both work together in preparing me to tackle the audience and their perceptions of my performance.  This is, as you note, under normal circumstances.  Walking into the audition, I had no earthly clue how un-normal the situation in its entirety would be.  I wanted to vomit.  I wanted to sprint away and vomit in a corner - any corner.  My hands went cold and began to shake.  I cursed my nervousness and warded off any identifications of my fears; once you identify your fear, you believe in that fear.  I had no desire in believing I was afraid of showing those auditioners what I had.  When finally I walked on the stage, a feeling of awkwardness was added to my nerves.  For three people sat in the center of a dimly-lit audience.  It looked so... dumb.  Yet intimidating.  What made it so dumb and intimidating was that these auditioners did not speak.  They just sat and waited for you to do your thing.  And so I did my thing except it wasn't exactly how I had practiced.  My first monologue (a "comedy") came out of my mouth in ways I cannot remember - all I know is that it was purely embarrassing.  Second monologue (Shakespeare) came out of my mouth reasonably close to what I had practiced, but I'm sure I skipped a line or a word here and there.  Needless to say, I whispered a thank you and started headlong toward the exit.  While in the wings, I heard an auditioner say, "That was good."  My conclusion:  There must be hope!
     When I checked the callback list the next day, I saw my name was not included.  My mind returned to the auditioner's words.  "That was good."  My conclusion:  He is sarcastic.

     I will audition again sometime in my life.  But I know very well how far I am from being its number one fan.  However, I'd eat bleu cheese, watch "The Egg and I", and stay behind slow cars in the right lane before I returned to that blessed stage with the three audience members.