Comparisons

People like to label each year and section it off, like if we put it into a box and analyze its problems, we'll be better able to take on the future, like events and changes limit themselves to a three hundred and sixty-six day span. Now, I'm not knocking year-end reflections, because I think it's valuable- it’s like we as a society needed to schedule a planning period and this was the time we picked. I'm always in need of some planning, so I'm happy to go along with it.

For me, I think 2012 is going to be the year of the metaphor. I mean, it's only one of many kinds of year- it's a leap year, an election year, an Olympics year, the apocalypse year- but you have to make it personal, somehow, and this was the year that I discovered just how much I love metaphors. I mean, it also could have been the year of staying in places that weren't mine (between adventuring, house-sitting, and a job that requires you to be on the road half the month, I've been around), the year of fear (afraid of being a thorn in someone's side, afraid of pain, afraid of not having enough), or the year when I read Anna Karenina. But I think that 2012 is best defined as the year when I finished watching Friends ("It's like all of my life, everyone has always told me you're a shoe... And then today I just stopped and I said, What if I don't want to be a shoe? What if want to be a purse, you know, or a hat? No, I don't want you to buy me a hat, I'm saying that I am a hat- it's a metaphor, Daddy!"), the year when I read The Fault in Our Stars ("It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."), and the year when I discovered the PBS Idea Channel ("Why does this guy insist that everything about internet culture is 100% the best? And come up with bad metaphors around it?" Because he's looking complexly at a huge section of today's society and linking it to big philosophical ideas. Duh. ). And now, since I've named it, I wanted to give you a list of metaphors about my life, but phrasing those proved to be challenging, so here's a list of similes for my life that I've discovered.

-Life is like my old computer. I got it in college and am consistently amazed at how it still works (not because of its quality, but because of sheer determination) , and how I still haven't completely replaced it with new technology.

- Life is like driving on a highway. There's a certain amount of pride that has to be squashed when you get passed while driving at a respectable speed, directions are occasionally difficult to come by or wrong, but the road's predictable enough that you can get by, and you can't always tell someone you've wronged that you're sorry. Also, you could die.

-Life is like snowflakes. Each one is unique because of the specific set of circumstances that it was formed in and traveled through to get to the ground. Plus, most of the snowflakes you see are conglomerations of individual snow crystals. When the crystals form, they start out as hexagonal prisms, and then the branches or arms form on the corners of the hexagonal prism, because that's the easiest place, and the crystal grows the way it does because it's easier to build on the existing arm than to make a new one. You never see a four or eight sided snowflake in nature, even though those are easier to make when you cut out paper snowflakes, unless the snowflake is deformed. Most of them are deformed, because journeying to the ground is difficult.

-Life is like searching for something on google. Sometimes it knows exactly what I want, because it's what everyone else wants too, and sometimes I can type in twenty different combinations of keywords without finding a thing because I can't for the life of me think of a different way to ask for something.

-Life is like getting a new phone. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my old one, but people kept on telling me to get a new one, and now I can't think how I functioned without it. Also, I'm surprised when people from purportedly third world countries have the same kind of phone I do, because you'd think that other things would get in the way.

-Life is like writing. To have any kind of confidence at all, you have to realize that when you speak with your own voice, it has a quality that no one else has, and you should be valued for that. Just because it's something that I would say said the way I would say it does not mean it is intrinsically bad. The contribution you're going to make is going to be unlike anything anyone else has made, even if tumblr has proven that there are hundreds if not thousands of people almost exactly like you, except with a weird affinity for squids.

-Life is like a literary comparison. It's difficult to understand, and it's never perfect.

Happy New Year! My New Years Resolution? Read 12 books. What about you?

Friends Part Deux: The Epic of the Lost Key

So I have this friend named Aj Wolfie who was staying with another friend of ours for about a month this summer. The way she explained it, since she wasn't going to be staying at this place very long (which is regrettable because it was a pretty awesome place with a hedgehog [even though he didn't like Aj very much] and great decor and an awesome roommate) she decided that she would just carry the key around in her wallet instead of putting it on her key ring. In her defense, it's really hard to get those keys on a key ring. I'd avoid it if I could. Anyway.

My friend's roommate Smalls was going to be out of town for the weekend. Smalls lives far to the west, about a five hour drive from Hapel Chill, where our story takes place. Hapel Chill, it should be noted, is one of the best places on Earth, with the nicest people and most beautiful campus, not to mention promising sports seasons where they will not (pleasepleasepleaseplease) lose to their non-rivals on Wolfie's senior night football game. I should also mention that this story takes place in beautiful North Carolina. You'll appreciate how wonderful it is only after you've left it for a year or two. Now that the scene is set, we can return to our narrative.

With Smalls far away, Wolfie had no way to get to church on Sunday morning. She bribed her former roommate, C-Stine, with a free breakfast if she would come retrieve Wolfie from her momentary lodgings. C-Stine complied and the two set off in C-stine's borrowed car, since her usual car, Rafiki, was in the shop after having bested a contest with a sleek black wimpy car that didn't pay attention to the important things in life, such as stop lights. They drove to Panera for a quick bagel and then C-Stine dropped Wolfie off at University Presbyterian University Lutheran University Baptist a Methodist Church. Wolfie remembers really enjoying the service, though she thought it was a little awkward coming in because she entered the church from the back instead of her normal front seat. She also had to climb over someone to help usher, but it all worked out in the end.

After the service, Wolfie went to meet her friend, Mary Jane, a red head, for brunch. Mary Jane was in town for the afternoon before heading down the road to meet her contra dancing partner and as she and Wolfie hadn't seen each other in a while, they walked down to Panera and had a good long chat in a booth across from where Wolfie had sat earlier that morning with C-Stine.

Wolfie then had to go to work at the planetarium because apparently weekend shifts are hard to fill in the summer in a college town and Mary Jane came along, having to wait a few hours before she could head out of town. Wolfie was helping a new tech train and spend most of her time before the shows started walking around the building pointing out random quirks and secret passageways. The afternoon shows went well and Wolfie clocked out to go meet her friend, Hermione, to watch a musical at her apartment. On her way out the door, she remembered hearing a metallic clink as something fell to the floor from the table in the student area, but she thought nothing of it.

Hermione had a genius plan which included Squirt, Red Vines, Reeses Pieces and Double Stuff Oreos and pizza. The musical, an online masterpiece of a sequel, often took a while to load, so even though they started the musical around 6, it was 11:30 before they finished the package of their favorite way to say Red Wines in a German accent and were heading back to Wolfie's apartment, since she had to teach a camp the next day. Wolfie picked up her bag at an odd angle in the darkened hallway, but the trip to the car and then to Wolfie's home was successful.

Outside the door, Wolfie fumbled in her bag while Hermione waited to see her safely in the house. In searching for her key, she discovered a hole in the lining of her bag and that her wallet had been left open since her second trip to Panera. Figuring that the key was in the lining of her bag, she motioned for Hermione to go home and sat down on her darkened front steps to search through her bag.

Five dimes, an empty purse and fifteen minutes later, Wolfie called Hermione back. She remembered the clinking noise and hypothesized that her missing key was at the planetarium. Hermione drove her over there and together they searched the darkened halls and hidden passageways of the planetarium for the missing key. The metallic noise, upon closer inspection, was a drill bit. Unsuccessful in their endeavors, Wolfie placed a few phone calls to C-Stine and Smalls to see what they could come up with. Smalls was helpful- she provided a phone number for maintenance but also suggested that the door was easily unlocked using a credit card. Armed with the erstwhile keys, Hermione and Wolfie headed back once again to Wolfie's apartment  while C-Stine searched her car for the key with the aid of a flashlight.

Many attempts and that's what she said jokes, not to mention a few exclamations of Alohamora, were wasted on the recalcitrant door. The maintenance man was phoned and the two friends retreated from blood-thirst mosquitoes into the safety of Hermione's car where they listened to wonderful music and jumped for the car door handles every time someone pulled into the parking lot in front of Wolfie's apartment, which was more frequently than expected for approaching two in the morning on a summer Monday. The maintenance man finally arrived in a beat up red pickup truck and let Wolfie into her apartment for the night. She bid her good friend Hermione farewell and thanks and fell almost immediately asleep, determined to search for the key more thoroughly on the morrow.

... To be continued.

Friends

I have wonderful friends, whether they're just the momentary friends who trade silly bands with campers and chase butterflies off our volleyball court (for reference, we looked kinda like this) or whether they're wonderful friends that help me move, get me a shower curtain, help me find a bike, help me move a bike or in general let me perpetually trespass on their kindness, they are all beautiful people. That being said, they're also pretty funny (as evidenced by this) and I wait on my bus back to my awesome new apartment, I'm going to transcribe a couple of my favorite voicemails for you to enjoy. The names have been omitted to protect the innocent.

__________________________________________________________________

Voicemail 1:

Addie Jooooooo! Happy Birthday! I love and miss you from Chile and um I don't know and sorry I don't have a lot of minutes so I can't talk long but I love you and I hope that everything is wonderful and your birthday is fantastic and good-bye!

Voicemail 2:

Addie Jooooooo! I guess you're in class or something but I got Skype which is exciting 'cause it's like 2 cents a minute for me to call you and um I miss you and also you need to know that I have found out that my father's going to be a drag queen named Trixie Treat for Halloween and that my mother's going to be his pimp in my grandmother's fur coat. Um. That is all.and there's nothing I can really say to finish that, to follow that up. Like, my mind is blown, I'm so excited. They went to Goodwill and apparently my dad bought silver shoes over the internet and while they're looking for dresses he's like, "No, we can't get that, it won't go well with my shoes." Um. But that's it. That's the end of my story. I love you and I miss you and I hope you're doing wonderfully! Bye!

Voicemail 3:

(Sounds of a copier) Oh, hey, sorry. Um. So apparently my computer's a pansy-ass and thinks that because its printer cartridges are incompatible that nothing else is compatible with it and -no, stop printing, you piece of crap!- and now it's going fast again and I don't really know what to do so I'm trying to scan it but if you can get the notes -Hey! Paper jam? No! Not cool!- if you could get the notes from Jana, I'd appreci- No, I am not pressing cancel for my help!- Anyway, I'll talk to you later and I'm really sorry that -ugh!- my printer sucks! -No! No! No!- OK, bye!

Voicemail 4:

I have a story for you. So you should call me.

Voicemail 5:

Hi Addie Jo, I called you and you didn't pick up so now I'm leaving you a message (sound of us laughing) OK, bye!
___________________________________________________________


OK, maybe these aren't as epic to you as they are to me, but I love them, as evidence by the fact that I saved one from my birthday last year, another from pre-Halloween last year and another from November last year. But if they don't amuse you, try to tune in for the sequel, which is the Epic of the Lost Key. It's going to be legendary.