The game of loveliness

During college I had a roommate who was several years older than me. We were literally roommates, sharing the same bedroom in the upstairs apartment of a timber-framed garage. I would get up at 4:50 to go to work feeding calves at the dairy farm, being as stealthy as I could, memorizing the creaks in…

hippies and cowboys

Spring fever hit hard. Like I do, I got the exploring bug, and this time it brought me to a little cafe in rural New York's version of a Hallmark town. For the past half hour I've been sitting here, lazily drinking coffee and halfheartedly working on the last assignments due before spring break, while…

The Things We Carry.

I don't consider myself a material-oriented person, but ever since I left for college and started the cycle of packing my stuff when I leave home, then packing it up again when I leave school, I've been more aware of the value of material things. In my literature class this semester, one of the short…

Portraits of Thanksgiving Break 2018.

Packed up my momma's suitcase and trucked home for Thanksgiving. Funny how much can happen in a few days when you go home...almost like the place is trying to make up for all the time you've been away. 11.20.18 It took us a good while to get the truck started in the cold, but we…

Five more minutes

Last weekend was the product of a crazy idea. A crazy idea that was born, of course, in the minds of six cousins (and one cousin's wife), and wouldn't take no for an answer. College, work, travel, miles notwithstanding, we were all going to get together for the weekend. Academically speaking it was a terrible…

Verbatim.

Some anecdotes from the first month. All quotes used without permission. "I saw the truck you drove here in. It's the color white." - little boy "You crushed it!" - older EMT "Is that your truck?" - everyone "Holy crap, your eyelashes are long." - classmate "So you're the lady that sits there and types?"…

It’s all about the words.

  To properly begin telling the story of my court reporting school experience, you'd have to start with why I chose this field of study in the first place. I'm not going to lie: after spending three semesters as a floating homeschool grad at a community college where everyone was either a friend, acquaintance, enemy,…

Burger joints, tire treads, and taxidermy signs.

9.18.18 All my life, I've had a really keen sense of place. It's always been important to me to know where I am, and I don't just mean where on a map. It's more of a search for the soul of a place. ...That sounds lofty. But let me try to explain. I have only…

conscientious freshman

Kanakadea Lake. Warning: the geese are super unfriendly. First day of classes, and I get called a "conscientious freshman" by my literature teacher. I took this as a compliment. Apparently I do appear conscientious, or at least somewhat in the know, because other freshmen keep asking me where to find things. (Or do they think…

Dateline: nowhere, USA

Update: it's my third day on campus at A. State! Yay! I feel like I've been here for a really long time. My calves are starting to hurt. If you have ever been to the Alfred State campus, you know that you have to walk up (or down, but mostly up) a steep grade to…