Ready

I've never felt more ready to go off to college than I do right now, sitting here in my bed, typing on my laptop at five in the morning. Five in the morning isn't usually when anything productive happens or people feel especially prepared, but somehow, in this moment, I finally think I'm absolutely ready.

It isn't about the piles of stuff heaped haphazardly in the guest bedroom, or the half-read summer reading book waiting to be finished, or the completed textbook order forms, or the move-in plans made, or anything you can check off on a to-do list.

You can prepare logistically to move out of your parents' house forever, but I don't think that's the most important part. It wasn't until this moment that I began moving, consciously at least, all the people in my life from actively affecting me to have affected me. That is not very clear, I realize, but it's a hard concept to force into the limitations of the English language.

I think most relationships reach a point where the people can simply no longer glean anything from each other, whether it's as important as life lessons or as insignificant as lunchtime company. Perhaps it's a bit callous to view people like tools that can outstrip their usefulness and call for replacing, but I can't help but feel that's what is happening to me right now.

Every conversation feels useless and strained, like everyone is just going through the motions because we've all grown accustomed to things going a certain way. There's no joy or relish, no excitement or fervor. All habit, tired routines. We've all been nailed into the caricatures formed by years of familiarity. We rely on the predictably we've created; while this once was comforting, so comforting the thought of leaving it was terrifying, it is now boring and limited. I feel stuffy and confined.

Most dangerously, I feel annoyed. The smallest things get to me. I want so badly to live a new life that things that belong distinctly in this old one are infuriating. All of this is coming from a self-professed hater of change. Nothing is more persuasive to me than the fact that I yearn for change, so often my mortal enemy.

Of course I love dearly all the people that have shaped my current life, and I always will. But I have to get away, or I will kill someone. I need newness, fresh faces that don't know anything about me. People that won't keep secrets from me because they fear judgment that doesn't exist. People that trust me because they haven't time to formulate prejudices. People that are willing to accept changes because they never knew the past. This is what I need now.

So finally, I think I'm ready. Things tend to be over-dramatic at five in the morning, but I'm grateful for these late night "epiphanies." Sometimes they give me the strength to face the oh-too-soon morning.


"I've lived in this place and I know all the faces/each one is different but they're always the same./They mean me no harm, but it's time that I faced it/They'll never allow me to change."

At Peace

While I was visiting, my grandmother sat in her television room and lectured me about opening my heart to the lord so I could achieve peace and direction in life, wiping her plentiful tears on her pink nightgown trimmed in colorful rickrack.

I sat there on the couch, my computer in my lap because I'd been showing her some picture she'd wanted to see, staring back at her, blank faced and stony-eyed. What else could I do?

The thing that annoys more about my grandmother than all the holier-than-thouness, the selfish manipulating, the lies is how she demeans my opinions. To her, I am just a little girl. Whenever I express an opinion on something deeper and more important than a flower arrangement, she laughs at how cute it is. Somehow, I can't help but think deep down she knows I'm right (she is racist, my dad isn't a horrible man, she is judgmental). Her demeaning glance is her way of justifying her flaws to herself: I can't be right, I'm just a kid.

But I'm not a kid. I know what I know. The sixty years or so of life "experience" she has on me means nothing the way she's lived it. She preached to me for so long about how God has been protecting her her whole life. But all that means to her is giving up any personal responsibility. In her world, she was a neglectful mother because God called her to serve the church. Not because she was just a bad mother who didn't know what she was doing and ran and hid. In her world, she was fired from one church because the preacher had it out for her. Not because she's incapable of compromise and highly arrogant. In her world, I am "defiant" because my parent have corrupted me. Not because I'm capable of independent thought, and capable of seeing that I never want to be anything like her.

She simply uses religion to absolve herself of her mistakes. I thought Jesus was supposed to forgive you for your sins, not justify them.

She swears I can't have peace without this same kind of God. I have no god and I want no god.

What she fails to understand is that I'm only at peace without religion in my life. It only makes me feel uncomfortable in my skin, make me doubt myself, a weekly infusion of needless and undeserved guilt. I don't need the sort of justification she does.

I am peace when I know that I'm in control of my life, and that measure of control gives me the strength to deal with what is beyond it. She has no idea how her lecturing solidifies the beliefs she so desperately tries to drive me away from. She has on idea how strongly I feel about them, and how sure I am of who I am.

I played her "The House That Built Me" once because she wanted an example of the music I saw in concert, a song about finding yourself again in your childhood home. All it prompted from her was a smug look on her face and the question, "are you lost? Do you feel lost?" I knew she wanted me to collapse into tears, fall into her arms, and beg her to drag me into the light of God, or some crazy crap. But I simply looked her in the eye and said "no."

It's crazy how many different meanings one word can I have. To her, my no meant I was harboring religious feelings inside, that I secretly possessed a blooming and magnificent relationship with her God. My no really meant that I was happy with my decision to reject her god, that I never felt more secure in my beliefs then when I decided I didn't need or want Christianity. I am not lost, but to her I always will be. She can't comprehend a "found" that is happier than hers or different than hers.

I was lost when I was trying to humor her, I was blind when I tried to sit honestly in a sanctuary, I was a wrench when I lied to myself about my beliefs. But now I see, now I see.

A Reasonable Doubt

I don't usually write about current events here but having just watched what seems like hours of coverage on the Casey Anthony trial, I feel compelled to throw my less than two cents into the discussion. It's bothering the heck outta me.

Of course the death of an innocent little girl is heartbreaking, but it's not the only sickening aspect of this ordeal. Nightline kept showing a shot of the angry crowd shouting "Justice for Caylee" followed by a shot of the angry mob with torches and pitchforks from Frankenstein films. The resemblance is shocking.

Everyone knows the justice system is imperfect; it is made of fallible creatures, therefore will be fallible. But in this case, it might be beneficial to take a leaf from its book.

Everybody is so quick to shout "baby killer" at Casey Anthony, and I admit it very much looks to be true. She may have gotten off through a simple lucky break, or her lawyers were that good, or the "scientific evidence went over the jury's head" like Nancy Grace insists. But all of this seems disgusting to me for one reason: what if she really didn't do it?

We can all speculate til we're blue in the face, but nobody really knows what happened except for the five Anthonys, and their stories conflict. It's impossible to pick which to believe. None of us were in that courtroom, and certainly none of them witnessed her committing a murder. Why are people so sure she killed Caylee, when all they have to go on are sound bites from Entertainment Tonight and speculation by Nancy Grace? Why do they think they know so much more than the jury?

Oh, that poor jury. I couldn't imagine the pressure of sitting in one of those seats. It's easy to say you'd like to dole out the death penalty when you're holding a picket sign outside the courthouse, but what if you're Juror #12 with a vote that can put a woman in jail for life? I don't think the decision would be so easy then. It's literally life or death; that's why our legal system only convicts people beyond reasonable doubt.

It's only right to hand a life sentence to somebody if you're absolutely positive they took it upon themselves to take somebody else's life. How could a jury live their lives if they sentenced Anthony but weren't sure she did it? There's twelve more innocent people, sentenced to a different kind of life in prison.

Casey Anthony doesn't seem like a good person. She appears to be a liar (and even accused her father and brother of unproven sexual abuse), selfish, and a neglectful mother. But we simply don't know if she's a murderer, and maybe just isn't good enough.

Post-Op Procedure

I could never be a veterinarian. Doctors have the luxury of patients that can tell them when it hurts. Animals will ignore the pain, spit out the medicine, growl. It takes a special hand to feel what is happening beneath the fur, treat without ever really knowing how the patient is reacting.

My cat must think this is some cruel torture. He is sent off into the hands of strangers in strange smelling rooms, cold and clinical. They poke and prod him. Then everything just disappears for awhile.

When he wakes up, he finds his carefully groomed coat half gone, his face imprisoned in a plastic prison, a drain poked through the lengthy cut in his newly exposed skin, held together by stitches and medical glue.

When he's finally returned to the incompetent but loving hands of his primary caregivers, they keep him contained in a cage where he thrashes about in confusion from the anesthesia and experience. Deprived of his freedom, body, and routine, he does not understand these sacrifices are made for a greater good. He simply must trust.

I have to pity the sad creature sleeping on the floor in front of me. The ends of the drain poking out from his purplish smooth skin raise up and down with each rhythmic breath. He lays his head awkwardly to limit contact between his ears and whiskers and the cone. He licks the tip of his tail and the ends of his paws; they're all he can reach, but he's desperate for the comfort of the familiar action.

Yet he sticks his head out so I can pet his forehead beneath the cone, scratch where it's tied around his neck. Though we've put him through his awful ordeal, he trusts. After all, we have the food.

Seymour

I get oddly attached to some inanimate objects. It's a problem, really. I can't help but personify the items I use daily, attributing them with traits until they seem to possess feelings as real as my own. This makes it strangely emotional when the inevitable happens and they are lost, replaced, or outdated.

Changing computers is one of the most difficult of these object transitions. Affectionately dubbed Seymour, my now six-year old Dell desktop computer has been both loved and cursed throughout his well-utilized life.

His arrival in my life was a complete surprise. I was in seventh grade and the technological age was dawning. Teenagers growing up in the early 2000s were rapidly joining the digital age and everything, academic and social, was going digital. I was spending more and more time on the family's old computer, even in the now unthinkable dial-up days.

Mom had just begun a new career and was making some money of her own. Even though she's always had her only child tendencies towards selfishness, she loves surprising people with big gifts. She definitely doesn't mind spending money.

I woke up that Christmas morning to find Seymour sitting in the living room in all his brand new computer glory. At the time, he was pretty up to date with his flat, sleek screen replacing the mammoth monitors common at the time. Of course, I was totally surprised and overjoyed.

During the next six years, a lot would happen to me as I sat in front of Seymour. It was there I typed all the papers and did all the research and created all the school newspapers that came to define me in a certain way. I sent all the IMs that kept me in touch with old friends and brought me closer to new ones. I discovered new books and music, troubleshooted all of life's problems, read the news, connected to the world.

I grieved when he crashed and paid copious amounts for his repair and restoration unto me. The computer, in earning his human pronoun, became an integral part of my life. It's amazing how computers become so precious, preserving the carefully typed thoughts and work, captured memories in 'My Pictures,' painstakingly composed playlists.

Perhaps Seymour's most important role was keeper of my college and scholarship applications. On his screen, I first saw my Carolina acceptance letter, the magic words defining the rest of my life.

So I can't help but feel a little bad sitting here typing this on my sleek and shiny new university-provided laptop. Seymour's blank screen across the room looks neglected, archaic. Though he's pretty much useless now--virus ridden, memory full, impossibly slow, something about putting my fingers on his home keys feels like home.

Okay, okay. I'm being incredibly silly. I know it's just a computer, circuits and wires incapable of feeling lonely or anything else. But maybe, sometimes I will fire him up. Just to feel better.

Goodbye Seymour. I'm sure I'll grow just as attached to this computer in good time.

Lipstick Feminism

A cupcake dress can be misleading. A candy-cotton scented auditorium filled with girls wearing cherry printed short shorts, bright red lipstick, blue wigs and bare mid-drifts can give you the wrong impression. Sugary sweet pink decorations, trimmed in lollipops and gummy bears and poofy-skirted back-up dancers might make you think Katy Perry is just another air-headed poptart of a musician.

But she isn't. Underneath the Willy Wonka aesthetic and shimmery sequin wardrobe, there's a message. Katy's kinda political.

Some parents might be outraged as their children sing "Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?/Don't be a chicken, boy, stop acting like a beeotch/I'ma peace out if you don't give me the payoff/Come on baby, let me see/what you're hiding underneath." But hundreds of male musicians produce entire albums about coaxing the clothes off "shorty" and leaving if they don't get the "pay off." Katy's one of the few women who are singing about getting guys to drop their pants instead of the other way around. Why shouldn't women be allowed to embrace sexuality like the men? While she prances around on the stage in a purple leotard and peacock feathers, Katy's not-so-subtly telling women they can play the boys' game. Maybe ten year old girls shouldn't be saying "beeotch," but they are empowered, allowed to embrace what the men have always been allowed to express.

A lot of Katy's songs have feminist undertones. "Pearl" is pretty blatant; it tells the story of a girl repressed by a commandeering man who eventually learns to break free. "Circle the Drain" tells off a deadbeat boyfriend more interested in drugs than his girlfriend.

I like Katy Perry because she can sing about being your own strong woman while wearing a shiny tight catsuit. And pull it off. You don't have to choose between being a pin-up "teenage dream" and a feminist. Katy Perry is both without even really trying.

She may have kissed a girl just cause she loves them so much.

This Is Country Music...And We Do

I'm not a redneck by any stretch of the imagination. I wouldn't be caught dead in a cowboy hat or boots. I don't drink, smoke, or drive a pick-up truck. I don't hunt or ride horses or live in a trailer park or any other stereotypical redneck thing.

Really, there's only one country thing (except maybe Cracker Barrels) I really like: country music. My ipod contains twangy country tunes with banjos and steel guitars amongst "cooler" music ranging from 80's rock, today's pop, and singer songwriters.

I never really could explain why I like musical genre that so enthusiastically sings about many things I hate like Hicktowns and illiteracy until I attended the Country Music Association's Annual Music Festival.

The fact the festival even exists is a testament to the uniqueness of the country music community. All of the artists play for free, and it's the big multi-platinum selling ones offering their services out of sheer appreciation for the fans who bought all of those millions of albums. All of the proceeds go to a charity that puts instruments and musical programs in inner city schools. Even though I'm not a huge fan, Taylor Swift summed up the cool thing about CMA Musicfest. As she closed the show on the final day, from the stage at the center of the big football stadium, she pointed at a moderately priced seat to the right of the stage: "when I was 15, I sat right there and watched this show, and now I'm up here thanks to all of you."

No other genres come together so cohesively like country music. No matter what song any of the performers sang, every single person (80,000 or so strong) knew all the words and shouted them with complete conviction. Country music fans are simply country music fans, not just following one or two artists.

But really, the greatest thing about country music is that there are real gems hidden among all the redneck anthems. If you dig past the mudflaps and boondocks and Daisy Dukes, you find songs that speak to the collective human experience. I came to that realization while James Otto talked about his writing of "In Color," a song about reflecting on life through photographs. He explained how he reflected on his grandfather's stories as he turned the creaky pages in his black and white photo album while writing the song: "A picture's worth a thousand words but you can't see what those shades of grey keep covered; you should've seen it in color."

I couldn't help but think of the photo albums we took from her house after my grandma died. They chronicled her life, in black and white. They told stories we'd never get to hear from her now and reminded us of the ones she did share with us. We truly couldn't see what was behind that grey smile as she perched on the hood of some car one summer in her youth. James Otto and Jamey Johnson captured all those feelings deep down in me that I didn't even know I had.

Isn't that what good music is supposed to do? I've never felt that way about a Lady Gaga song, no matter how much her fans think I'm silly for watching a devastatingly unattractive (seriously, look at a picture of Jamey Johnson) man pick guitar strings and sing his life story to a very drunk crowd, but I'll defend it to the day I die.

Tim McGraw sings "Some say it's too country, some say it's too rock-n-roll, but it's just good music if you can feel it in your soul." I think a good song is one that makes the listener feel something, the emotion oozing out of every syllable, every note. A song that transmits the experience of the writers and performers straight to all the open ears taking it in. I think Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" is one of the greatest songs every written because it can make a person feel so utterly lonely even when surrounded by loved ones. It's just that powerful to me.

So maybe I'm not a redneck, but country music isn't just for rednecks. It's for anyone who has found peace in their childhood homes, left home or missed their adult children, or just learned from life's mistakes or simply living.