4

Can we speed this up?

Get to the inevitable?

Get to the place where were more than face to face?

More than hands on a body/more than we can handle.

• We're back to our basics

We took it back more than a step

• And took it forward more than we knew possible.

La Florida

Home is in my heart. I am my home.

Fifty Seven degrees in the Sunny state of Oklahoma

Today is my first day of Fall, legitimately. It is dreary and gray, with a twist of drizzle. I feel uncomfortable, undefined. I feel out of place in my own clothes, in my own home. Again, I don't feel real, and I don't feel like me. Who this is, this girl with salmon nail polish. This girl that can't save money and can't love. I can not love, so should I feel like me? I pick, I click, I kick: nervously. I can not stop moving, so should I feel like me?

• I determine reality isn't what we make it to be, that maybe warmth only exists between waves?

I've created an escape, but from what (and to what) am I escaping? It seems nothing. I am escaping from myself, but I've escaped to myself; by myself.
It's days like these where I just want to eat tacos and bake bread. It's days like these where I wish I was strong enough to be on drugs. I wish that I was strong enough to use a crutch, but I can not pull myself up far enough to get it underneath my arm, nor far enough to even lift myself up an inch to the middle rung.

This time next week, the sun will be shining.
Will it be literal, or can I make it figurative?

Like these thunderstorms, I feel isolated. If I move, if I expand, what will become of me?
Can I grow taller than those crutches? Tower over the ghost of myself and see past this horizon?

"Inside" jokes

Inside jokes, I have redefined
I can not share you, you're only mine.

Mein Kampf

After a month (or two) hiatus from the writing scene, I have decided to re-immerse myself into my once-passionate activity. I've gotten very tired of the lack of grammatical structure and exquisite spelling that I could at one point produce without any fore or after thought. This used to just come to me. I used to be able to create something beautiful without my struggle. I've gotten very tired of all of my "used to"s and excuses for why I don't feel as intrinsically fluid with my words. I am still a writer. I am still a person with a story to tell. My story shouldn't be hidden by my struggle.

meine Geschichte/ mein Kampf

I've recently decided that I am a German princess. This wasn't fabricated out of my own will to be royal or majestic, but from a friend, N.S., calling me this as an insult. I was bratting around like I normally do, and he dubbed me "German Princess". I hate girls. I hate girls and frills. I hate girls and frills and their gaudy, whiny shit. From this title, I have not obtained a feeling of righteousness, but a loathing for myself. A loathing for my frills. A loathing for my frills and my gaudy, whiny shit. Regardless of my feelings, I am a German princess. I sit in my castle crying for attention; for a friend to care and a life to love. I wear my tiara as I gallop on my high horse, hating and envying these lowly people around me, hating myself and my existence more with every stride.

mein Hass/ mein Leben

Once upon a time, I dreamt of Polynesia. In transition from Florida to Oklahoma, I told my friends that I wasn't coming back; that I was heading west and west and west until I hit Easter Island and met the descendents of the Long Ears, if there were any left after the Short Ears. I planned to become one with them, to allow them to mark me with a free-form tattoo that I would wear proudly as a badge of my travels. I would speak their language, wear their clothing, know their culture. Yet here I am, in Oklahoma, drained of my drive and my fighting force that once so boldly shoved me out of my home and west and west and west. I have gone nowhere, though I know there is time for change, meine ändern. I know that if I can feel myself, as factitious and remote as that feels, if I can just stop glancing up and re-reading.

Mir. Meine. Mich Selbst.

This is my step one, I don't know two. I haven't got a third or fourth, but with time I will expand.

Onesie Twosie

I'm not going to blog about the Fourth of July because I didn't do anything that day. I watched the Boston Pops on tv, I didn't even go outside to watch locals set off fireworks (though there were many of them and the cats were horribly scared and shooting around the house in anxiety). This is a recap of the past two days, a "Onesie Twosie". Tuesday was a good day. I decided to venture out of the house and talk to some schools, specifically Chard Barton's School of Hair Design. I mention them previously as the school that accidentally left their doors unlocked. It was funny because he, Chad Barton, THANKED me for leaving the note and said he was about to call me (I believe him too; my note was on his phone). He then explained that you have to pull the door in in order for the lock to properly spin, and that the person who locked up was new and didn't know better. The had just started a new class, so everyone was in the back classroom learning how to use "shears" (he very specifically told me to not ever call them scissors because there is a large difference). We went over everything, from licensing qualifications, to what would actually BE on the license, classroom sizes, leeway with scheduling, tuition etc... In the end, it really seemed like the perfect school for me. Their focus is slowing down, taking your time, and being PRECISE. That's right y'all, PRECISION cutting. Not just hacking at random until it looks pretty. He gave me paperwork to look over and told me to get back to him whenever I'm ready to enroll. I'll most likely be starting in the beginning of September.
After this, I went to Barnes and Nobles to read for a while. It'd been a really long time since I'd been to one, so it was exciting to read n a foreign place. It was pretty cool actually because the Starbuck's was up on this stage-type thing and you had to walk up about five-ten stairs to get to it. I stayed there for an hour or so reading some book about Marilyn Monroe (though, to be honest, once you've read one Marilyn Monroe book, you've basically read them all). I also texted my mother for a while and talked about various things. She's shipping me a box of stuff so we've been discussing the contents of it for the past week. I feel bad because it's kind of expensive to ship things like that, but I'm 1,000 miles away (literally!!) so we don't have much of an option.
Another fun event of Tuesday was going and testing out this yoga studio, Cadence Yoga. It was definitely a good move because the instructor was CREATIVE with her routine. it was like any routine I had ever done before. She put things in orders that I didn't realize was possible, which actually made me have to stop and watch other people for a minute to figure out how to get from point A to point B. I bought a month membership and I'm going back today. It felt GREAT to be sore. I feel like that's a weird thing to say, but it really did! I took Wednesday off as a day of rest for my muscles, but I'm ready to go back today and rip them up again. THIS time, I'm going to bring water though. I forgot last time and felt disgustingly dehydrated when I left. It prompted me to run and buy McDonald's sweet tea immediately after getting out of the class. For the record, this is literally the only place in Oklahoma to get REAL sweet tea. Nobody else outs NEARLY enough sugar in it.
Wednesday wasn't that exciting. I signed paperwork for Sak's and then went home and read all day. The main exciting thing was TOMMY, my lovely cousin, coming home. We ordered pizza and baked a cake for his birthday. It was pretty groovy.

No more countdowns. This is life.

I'm going to cut to the point on this one, because I honestly didn't do anything all morning. Eventually my aunt told me to go out and find some kind of festivities because there's bound to be SOMETHING the day before Independence Day. I googled around and found out that the OKC Philharmonic was having a free concert in Bricktown. I left at about five and was approximately three hours early for the concert, so I asked some random dudes to point me in the direction of something interesting. I then went walking, saw some cool sculptures, but it was hot and i grew tired pretty quickly. I saw an ice cream place, either marble Slab or Cold Stone, I can't remember which, and went inside. It was lovely, all of that air conditioning and the cold treats. I hate the heat, I'd rather layer and wear jackets. So I ordered some black cherry ice cream, and went on about my day. Pretty quickly I came to the conclusion that there was no way I was going to be able to eat off of my ice cream, it just wasn't going to happen. I know this because I NEVER can finish my ice cream, I always share with somebody else. I'm a small girl, I don't eat that much. This lead to me moping around Bricktown being unhappy because I had almost a full cup of ice cream and I really didn't want ti eat it, but I kept forcing it down because I paid five dollars for it and there was no going back. So I walked, eating this ice cream, glaring at this ice cream, hating this ice cream more and more with every bite. Eventually, I sat down in the shade against a random building next to a parking lot and started crying. I had absolutely nobody within 1,000 miles(literally) to share ice cream with. my aunt doesn't even like ice cream so if she has been there, I would've been on my own. It really hit me that I was 110% alone. Eventually, the parking attendant came up to me and asked me if I was okay. I had stopped crying by then, but started again once I explained to him why I was upset in the first place. My ice cream, or what was left of it, was melted into pink sugary soup. He gave me a hug and I followed him towards the entrance to the parking lot so that he could actually do his job. I sat and talked with him for a while: His name was Matt, he is twenty nine, and had moved here from Las Vegas about a month ago. It's funny because my aunt was right: the only people that would branch out to be my friend are other people that aren't from here. He was cool I guess, but it was obvious we didn't have a lot in common. His main pastimes were drinking and taking his dog for walks. And also arguing with his grandmother apparently. My main pastimes are drawing/painting, reading, baking, and actually doing productive things with my life. Eventually, he was off of work and leaving, and I was ready to just give up and go home, so we parted ways. I didn't even stay for the concert. The massive crowd of people was too big for me to handle and I was hot from walking around in jeans all day. I went home and told my aunt everything. To make things happier, we went to IHOP and got some dinner at about ten. It was nice since we got to sit and talk about things and laugh about old stories etc. All in all, I learned today that I'm not as much of a loner as I thought I was. I need something, someone, SOME distraction to get me through July, I just don't know what.

Day Seven: We'll call this one "Chasing Pavements"

I craved salt. We'll start with that. I craved salt all of day Seven, and there are not enough pickles in the world to save me. I've been a bit dizzy, so I think I'll be increasing my sodium intake by 110%. Low sodium levels=low blood sugar, and my body has a hard time retaining sodium, even though I eat salt aalll the time. Now, on from the complications of my innereds...
I received an e-mail from Chad Barton's School of Hair to come and tour at "any time", specifically saying (or so I thought) that they were on the premises that day, so I figured it'd be a good Saturday activity to venture over there and see what's up. This is when things started getting way too complicated: I went to program the address into the gps so that I could get there without having to cry, but the device failed to recognize the "I-35 Service road" that the school is located on. I thought to myself, "Hey! I've been here a week! I've driven on the I-35 service road before! This will absolutely not be a problem because I am Geographically gifted naturally and I can find ANYTHING". Yeah? WRONG! This drive that should have taken me 10-15 minutes TOPS ended up taking me an HOUR AND A HALF!! I drove down SO many roads that I didn't know, including multiple random interstates, and eventually stopped at a gas station for directions. As luck would have it, all I had to do was drive about three exits south, then get on the service road and find it. This is what sucks about people in Oklahoma: They have no North to South concept. The roads run from East to West, so they don't actually use the words "North" and "South", they POINT. The problem with POINTING is that it's really easy to POINT NORTH instead of SOUTH. Luckily, I'm a smart cookie and I know that Oklahoma City is north of Moore, which is where the school is located. So I headed SOUTH three exits on I-35, which MIRACULOUSLY took me to where I needed to be!
Now, my excitement was uncontrollable; you all know how high energy I can be sometimes. I jumped out of the car and scurried over to the door, only to find a sign that says, "School will be Closed on July 2-4 for the holiday weekend". WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!@?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?@??!?!?!?!? I decided to try the door just in case, and it actually opened! I walked inside to see who was there to answer a few of my questions, but there WASN'T anybody. I walk around a little, say," Hellooooo???" a few times, but there really wasn't anybody there. The cash register was open and emptied of it's inhabitants, but all other valuables where out in the open. I wrote a lengthy note telling them that they should really lock their door, and also call me when they get in because I want to enroll!
After this, I meandered around and found a cool second hand shop called "Daisy Exchange" and bought some work appropriate clothing. I'm probably going to be returning to there regularly because it's right next to the hair school, so YAY! There were a lot of ugly people and screaming children, but I learned that there are in fact teenagers in Oklahoma! I hadn't seen any until this point, or anyone in their twenties either, so I was jazzed. After that, I drove around for a while until I managed to find someplace to eat, and bought my aunt some food as well.
The rest of my day was spent reading and working out, I maybe ate something but I don't remember. blalalalalalnlbllbllaahhh

Day Six: Productivity.

Friday was a day of rest, but I still managed to accomplish a lot. I baked bread for the first time in about three-four years, cleaned some, read some. Most of my day was spent passed out on the couch due to some unruly Benadryl trying to keep me down. Obviously, the Benadryl won, I slept from two until seven. The rest of the day was spent watching the news with my aunt. The bread was really, badass by the way, and we had cheese ravioli for dinner so it worked out nicely. idk, I'm disorganized with the thoughts today.

Day Five: I'M A WINNER!!!

Day five is probably the best day I've had here so far, aside from a few technicalities. The morning went like this: Awaken at eight by the obnoxiously loud and disturbing sound of my alarm (I have a special alarm for people with hearing disabilities and it not only RUPTURES withing sound, but also has a bed shaker so it shakes and screams you awake)to drive my aunt to a doctor's appointment. I'm still getting used to driving in a different state, especially with other people in the car, so there were a few mishaps on the way. The thing about Oklahoma is that they're really obnoxious with their stop signs and service roads. They put stop signs randomly in the middle of roads, and service roads line basically every interstate. I could deal with this is I was using a gps, but when I'm taking verbal directions, trying to pay attention to many factors at once, it gets super confusing super fast. That, and my aunt yelled at me to run a yellow light and I started crying, but that isn't important. ANYWAYS, As she was getting checked up, I googled vintage shops and random things that are in the area, finding that there are a substantial amount of second hand stores in a two mile radius of my current position. I took addresses and vowed to go back to them at a later time.
After the appointment, we decided to go out to eat. She had been fasting since nine the night before, and we were both getting dizzy. Personally I'm not sure why I was so dizzy yesterday, but the symptoms persisted on and off the whole day. We went to chili's (for breakfast!) and ate wwaaayyyy too much. We went home eventually, and I started working on looking for a good cosmetology school that doesn't cost $15,000+ in a nearby area. I found a couple to ask for information from, and one that's only about five miles from my house that looks REALLY nice (tuition, license, and kit=$7,000!)
As I was rocking out to Indian music and googling things, I missed a phone call from my beloved Ska's Fifth Avenue off 5th. As soon as I got the voicemail asking for me to call them, I KNEW I had it. I called them back, and sure enough, they offered me the job! I'll mainly be the on call at first, which works for me because I'm going to be starting school this fall, but they also said that they think I have a lot of drive and promise and that they see me easily moving up in the company. I go in to sign paperwork on Wednesday, and orientation is July 16-17! I'm so happy that I'm going to get to do something so exciting and memorable on my birthday (July 16th). The best thing is the $.50 raise that I'm getting from my last job, and the fabulous opportunity to be the starting crew to a store that I know I'll love working at. My shoe collection is going to be so fabulous!!!
To close out the day, I danced excitedly around the house for a while, hung out with my aunt, and had cuddle time with Uggie, her super scaredy cat that is afraid of everyone. The story behind Uggie: My aunt likes to save lives (she IS an RN, after all), and when she found this poor baby, his head was a bloodied mess, half of his tail had been cut off, and he was cross-eyed from some kind of head trauma. They didn't think he was going to last, so they just called him Ugly Cat, which after he was healed changed to Ug or Uggie. He's still cross-eyed and half tailed, but aside from that he is an absolutely beautiful, black, fat, and loving cat. This cat is my new best friend here as I empathize with his life struggle and feel the need to smother him with love and affection. My cousin apparently just recently has been able to pet this cat, and on day Four I managed to get him to voluntarily jump up on the couch and lay with me. I guess it's just another way that I'M A WINNER!

Day Four: Follow up Interview

I don't have a lot of time to write today, so I'm going to have to make this snappy. The main activity of yesterday was my follow up interview for Sak's Fifth Avenue off 5th. I was so jazzed about it ll day, I basically did nothing but get ready until I had to leave around one thirty. I ended up in a very 1930's secretarial look. Yeah, I DO mean Great Depression Era, but it still looked really good. It went pretty well in total, the woman seemed really impressed with all of my answers. I'm supposed to hear back from them in the next few days, but the look in her eyes said that I for sure WOULD be hearing back from them :DDD

Day Three: The Slight Exploration of Norman, Oklahoma

I'm starting to make this fantastic habit of waking up, making my bed, drinking orange juice, exercising, showering, and then blogging about the past day. I get all of the large things done by eleven and then I have more than enough day to do anything else I want/need to do. After completing my morning routine, and spending a good amount of time slacking online, I embarked on a journey to visit imagine- Paul Mitchell in Norman, Oklahoma. For some reason, everyone here thinks that ten-twenty miles of driving is really far, but it's really five-ten minutes to everything. So we'll call this a mini journey, a slight exploration.
When I first made my appointment to tour the school, I had told them Tuesday at Three P.M., but the day before I got an email from them saying that my appointment was at noon instead. Being me, I'd much rather be ridiculously early than ridiculously late, so I showed up at exactly 11:50. Of course, I was on the list for three o'clock, but they told me that if I waited for ten minutes that I'd be able to take my tour then (which means exactly at noon, isn't that funny?) I was greeted by a highly excitable blonde woman that was there to tell me ALL ABOUT HOW BAD ASS THEY ARE BECAUSE OF POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT! I will admit, the facility was gorgeous, there is no denying that, and everyone there really looked like they wanted to be there. I mean, they must REALLY want to be there if they're willing to fork out $15,000+ just to get licensed. Put now the question is pending: Am I really that willing to fork out $15,000+ just to get licensed? Does it really matter that much to be able to say some fancy name when people ask you where you went to school?
Fore-mentioned William Keohane brought up the point to me that regardless of where you go, it's not just about "beauty school", but the education afterwards that makes you into a great stylist. Nobody is going to be born straight into the beauty world an automatic badass, pulling off super awesome precision cuts and edgy shit out of nowhere. You, not matter what, have to have follow up education to fine tune your skills. So now it's a REAL question: Is the name worth $15,000+, or is it better to make your own name? I know which direction I'm leaning, but there is still a lot for me to contemplate.
After leaving the school with a head full of options, I decided to get my very first library card in a different state. The day before I had written down the names and addresses to libraries in my surrounding already, so I got out the trusty gps and typed in the one that was for Norman. I must pause and tell you, I really like Norman. They're this random cultural hub with art fairs and festivals and random go and do-s all the time. I will probably be posting about a lot more extensive adventures in this town. ANYWAYS, The library was only three minutes or so away, and is a straight shot to my house as well. SO I'm following the lefts and rights of the gps until I get to a certain right that should be my last stop, but it is one street before where I needed to turn. Normally, I'd be like, "Hey no biggie! I can just cut across some back road and get where I need to be". Here's the problem with that: I turned right onto a one way road STRAIGHT INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!! At first i was like, "what the fuck? This doesn't make any sense!" Until I remembered that I had just been on a one way road the other way. What's up with me thinking of parts instead of wholes?? THEN I was like "HOLY SHIT I'M DRIVING INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!!!!!!!". As fast as I could, I swerved away from the car directly in front of me and pulled into a parking lot. I am STILL thanking God that the street wasn't as busy as the other one way street; there were only about three cars in view, and the road is pretty long. I'm also pretty thankful that there weren't any cops there to give me some huge ticket for being a dumb ass and not being able to follow really clear gps instructions.
Luckily, the library was basically right in front of me, so I quickly entered the parking lot and parked. Walking inside, it reminded me a lot of the library at home, just bigger. The blue signs hanging from the ceiling were a dead ringer for the ones in the Main Branch in St. Augustine. I walked up to the librarian and said, "Hey, I've lived here for about three days now, and I'm completely out of things to read. Could you possibly help a brother out?". She looked at me like I had just asked her to hold my cat as I skinned it, so I said, "I mean, I need a library card. If that's cool." She directed me to the blue application forms, which I promptly filled out, and then they got me set up. Since I have a Florida license and no proof of residency currently, they told me that they'd mail me my card, but I could check out two books that day. The coolest thing about this library is how freakishly high tech it is. You get two cards: One for your wallet, one for your key chain. You can also go online and log in with your card to see what books you have, how long you've had them, when you need to return them, request new books, and keep up to date on community events. How seriously cool is that? There are a couple other things that are lost in my current memory lapse, but I'm pretty sure you get the point. my first two books were: "Classic Feynman" which is the literary version of speeches give by the famed physicist (he worked on the atomic bomb, yo), and a book of post 9/11 political plays, which I checked out solely because I had never heard of anything like that before.
After returning home, I ate some food and chilled with my aunt, read for a while, and of course passed out on the couch. Upon waking, I decided to start applying for financial aid, which I promise you is something you never want to do ever. It lead to a really nice mini breakdown though, which Viktor managed to cure pretty quickly with this quote: You have within you all your true friends. The ones that really care about you. Let them give you the strength to move forward and never feel lost and without a destination. Your path in life is made every single day and at every single second. Don't think that you have to define yourself and know who you are to know what you want and where you're going. What you are and where you are going is shown to you at every single thought you have and at every new desire and with every new friend. You are what you experience everyday. and that's why you'll always have a chance to start again.

Day Two: The Job Hunt

Before I moved to Oklahoma, I had a part time job (with full time hours)at Calvin Klein. Though I only worked there for about two months, it was definitely a retail crash course. I learned how to do everything from POS to sincere customer service (not just saying hi, but actually being helpful). My trials and tribulations at Calvin Klein proven to be extremely beneficial on my second day in Oklahoma as I began what will now be call 'The Great Job Adventure' (TGJA for short). The beginning of TGJA began with our friendly neighborhood companion Craigslist.
Craigslist has always been my immediate go to in any of my job hunts, and I had started searching this website before I even started packing to move here. The only problem with Craigslist is that if you don't click on one section and just click on Part Time (which of course I'm not getting a full time job just yet), it is super generalized. In St. Augustine, this was never that much of a problem, but OKC is the 8th largest city in land mass! That's about eighty thousand more jobs than I need. I narrowed it down slowly by townships, and eventually found a job fair posting for a new Saks Fifth Avenue-Off 5th store that's opening right in the heart of downtown. All I had to do was get pretty, program the gps so that I could amble up there, and drive.
When I got to the job fair, which was at a Hampton Inn close to downtown, I had this strange calmness when I walked in. The only other person that was currently there to be interviewed was wearing a t-shirt, cut offs bedazzled flip flops, and about thirty ounces too much of fake gold jewelry. This is my competition? To give you a nice comparison, I was fresh faces, wearing only a little mascara and some lip stain, hair styled just like my dear friend and owner of Push Push salon, William Keohane, had taught me, a partially sheer long sleeved floral blouse, gray skinny pants cuffed and belted, and my absolute favorite wing tip heels that I just so happened to buy from Saks Fifth Avenue. I may not have bee business casual, but I was 100% dressed for success in this scenario. I Introduced myself, clearly naming my intentions, and they asked my to fill out an online personal survey since I was having a serious problem retrieving my resume from my flash drive (because Window's Office isn't standard to my cousin apparently).
The first section was a ten minute math portion that I'm pretty sure I failed. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved math and I used to be able to do intense long division in my head, but an out of practice mathematician is an out of practice mathematician. I finished about three fourths of the quiz, taking way too long to answer most questions. After that, it was a standard q and a about my past experience, and then a work ethic survey.
I come back into the room and give them my name and other info, and they asked me to take a seat and wait to be interviewed. I sat next to the chick with blingin' flip flops, and excitedly waited. As I'm sitting there, I notice a large brown spider slowly crawling towards me on the floor. Immediately, I decide that I must kill it. I MUST kill it, but not with my shoes because I really like my shoes and what will they think of me if I psychotically go after a spider and ohh there are tissues on the table over there I could get one of those stoop down and SMASH THE SHIT OUT OF IT but not psychotically just enough to kill it of course..... So I quickly and directly RUN across the room, grab a tissue, RUN back, and the spider is gone. I quietly, and accidentally may I add, say, "DAMN IT! I was going to kill that spider!", the spider that only I had seen. They look at me like I just bit the head off of a chicken, and I explain that there was in fact a large brown spider that I would be soon fighting to death as soon as it resurfaced. I then took my place, calm and collected, in my chair and continued to look for that FUCKING spider.
A moment later, the interviewer came to obtain the One Whose Shoes Shine Like the Sun, but she returned less than two minutes later without her in tow (big surprise, right?). It was MY turn to outshine the sun! We walked to a far off corner of the lobby, and she asked me all of the standard questions. For the first time ever, I felt 110% comfortable with every single answer. Usually I stumble over my words at least a little bit and have to pause to think, but this time I had the answer as soon as she had the question. Her face and body language showed that she was impressed with my background, drive, and confidence in myself. She kept her head up, arms open, and a smile intact at all times. At the end of the interview, she told me that she'd like to have me talk to one of the other officials there at the job fair for a second interview, and when she learned that the woman was on the phone, she set up an interview on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m.!! I thanked her, wished her luck on her journey for the rest of her crew, and left with the biggest smile!!
I got home without too much difficulty, and greeted my aunt with a grand, "Honey!! I'm HOME!" and told her all about how much I love my life right now. Then, I made us salads as she made seriously delicious homemade split pea soup that makes you want to slap your mother. More specifically MY mother because she has an unreasonable bias against split pea soup and had been holding out on my for WAY too long. The rest of my day consisted of watching the news and learning about Abraham Lincoln and his insane wife. Fun ending, right? I fell asleep at twelve thirty just like the good lil' old lady I am.

Oklahoma: Day One

You know that weird feeling you get the first night when you're in a different place when you wake up and you have no idea where you are or how to step out of the bed? Your eyes dart around the room for the first few seconds f half consciousness searching for all of the things you're so used to being near you on your first few seconds of consciousness: Closet door to the left next to bedroom door, huge bay window straight out front, comforting wall directly to your right that gets it's fair share of cuddling... But of course, none of it is there. In a moment of panic, you wildly smack your hands around searching for your glasses, searching for something that will help you give a name to this foreign place in front of you. After the initial haze of morning passes, you finally realize: This Is Not Where I Wake Up. This is Oklahoma.
The darkness of the room was the main thing that put so much confusion into my head. It was ten o'clock and my bedroom was pitch black. No, this is not like Alaska and they DO have regular daylight hours; my cousin has blinds, as well as thick black curtains, that void all potential light and indicators of life in "The Outside World". Opening these blinds proved to be a tedious, as well as blinding, task that I quickly abandoned. Light switches are far easier than undoing what an anti social Air Force man has spent years concealing. I threw on a few simple clothes and ventured into the house to experience my first Mid-Western morning.
The whole night before, I had had horrible dreams about the never ending bus ride that had brought me there, waking multiple time with violent joint pain that I still that morning had not overcome. My first order of business was to step outside and greet the world with sun salutations. After moving from sun salutations to legitimate yoga poses, I found that I would need to let my joints naturally unwind themselves as I couldn't even execute "high plank" (like a push up) without crying out in agony. I did a few more simple stretches and then allowed myself to lay out in the back yard for a bit for some all natural sun healing.
At around noon or so, my aunt woke up and we spent some quality around the house time together before embarking on the longest grocery shopping trip I have ever been on. The house was completely empty of food and other groceries, so we knew it would take us a good amount of time. Since I am new to the area and need my practice, I drove us to Oklahoma's equivalent to Publix: Homeland. I never would have realized that it was a grocery store if she hadn't told me honestly, as from the outside, especially with the title, you would assume that it is a home improvement store. This proved to be the most interesting part of the day as Oklahoma doesn't carry half of the things we do in Florida, so I had absolutely no idea what was a good brand and what was a knock-off brand. I don't think I've ever said, "I don't get it..." that many times in ANY store in my life. Produce, at least most of it, is a lot more expensive, their avocados were literally DUSTY, as were a lot of the more unique products. I'm pretty sure the thing that blew my mind the most was the IMPORTED orange juice. It was about six-seven dollars a carton if you weren't getting concentrated juice. I always thought that orange juice was pointlessly expensive IN Florida, but these people are being straight up ROBBED.
They've never had the pleasure of picking an orange straight off of the tree and eating it in the field. They've never even had the chance to take the beach for granted like everyone in Florida does. In this one day that I've been here, I already want to beat the crap out of my past self for not appreciating everything that I thought would always just BE there, because for most people? It's never even been there. They've never even considered it an option for it to just be there.
In the check out lane, I saw that the news paper here is called 'The Oklahoman'. I turned to the cashier and said, "So that's what you're called if you're from Oklahoma? Oklahoman? I'm sorry, I just moved here from Florida.. yesterday..." She looked at me like nobody had ever asked her that question before, and aptly answered, "I.. I have no idea. I've never even thought about it. I guess so, if that's what the news paper says, haha!". I told her that their orange juice is overpriced, smiled, and walked out.