Both a Beginning and an End

You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works.

-Charlton Heston

So I have a treat for you all. I wrote this a couple days ago after struck with inspiration. It is very rough, but there is so much more to this story that i would love to tell you over time. Just give me your patience and it will all piece together over time. I do feel morally inclined to inform you though that this isn't strictly a creation of my imagination, but actually a growth of a relationship between characters that were not all of my conception. I only wish i was creative enough to have spawned the fellow you are about to meet. - Anna

“Do you love him?” The question rolled smooth and cool from behind a familiar smirk.

“Of course,” she pouted. She resented that he would even be so audacious to ask.

“Do you really?” He pressed further, not because he necessarily doubted the girl’s devotion (the fact that he did had nothing to do with his asking,) but because she got so flustered so easy. His arms crossed over his chest as he relaxed languidly against the painted cinder block wall of the hallway. He noted the unusual fact that they were alone but didn’t take his eyes off the pink flush that was rising in her cheeks with her irritation.

“Yes,” she toned forcefully. She knew she should just walk away. She shouldn’t take the bait, that’s all this was. He liked to get her worked up. He was just setting her up for his sick amusement. He wanted her to yell at him, to call him names and make a scene in front of their classmates. That’s what he did as long as she’d known him. That resolved it. She would walk away. He wasn’t saying anything anyway. Just looking at her with those dark calculating eyes, who knew what he was thinking anyway? She sure as hell didn’t. She met his eyes in one more hopeless attempt to better understand him before adjusting the strap on her shoulder.

“Are you sure?” He’d waited until she’d turned away. So close to making that grand exit. He held up one long finger to silence her as she rounded back on him, the tension rising with a breath that was meant to fuel one of her most precious tirades. “Before you raise your voice, I would advise you against it. Not because I’m not rather fond of the vocal range of you rage, I actually am, but I think you should look around first.”

She looked down each length of the hallway under his advice though still rather perturbed that he continued to question her on how she felt about anyone at anytime. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for among the alternating blue and orange lockers, but she was certain she didn’t find it. There was nothing to be seen. She glared back at him but caught the volume of her voice. “And…?”

“Who did you see?” He asked an amused look dancing in his eyes.

She glared back at him. She hated him for enjoying her this way. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? “No one.”

“Precisely. There is no one out here to hear us speak, to eavesdrop, to assume more is going on than there really is. Nothing more than a civil conversation between peers, right?” The smirk that curled on his lips spoke more than his words, but she said nothing. “You start screaming at me, each and everyone of those doors is going to open up. Not only will you be disturbing all of these young minds hard at work learning, you’ll have to explain why you aren’t present in your French class right now, won’t you?”
She stopped and let this process for a moment while looking down the hallway again. It was true that he had caught her at a time that most were in class, but it was unusually still for it being a school day. Where were the other skippers? And the students sneaking off to the bathrooms for a cigarette?

“I suppose you don’t want to get caught out of class either, do you?” She smirked up at him feeling triumphant to have caught him in a moment of desperation as well. “Maybe I’ll yell anyway. Get us both caught. I have nothing better to do than detention. How ‘bout you? Make you late for your father? He wouldn’t like that would he?”

Her triumphant glow was amusing enough that he let out a bark of a distant laugh. “I told you, I would prefer it if you were screaming, yelling, and trying to berate me. You are much more creative than the other girls when it comes to insulting me. I enjoy it. And if you want to yell, by all means, go ahead, but I won’t be joining you in detention.” He unfolded his arms to cross them the other way and smile at her.

“Why not?” She eyed him suspiciously. “You have a valid reason to be cutting class and tormenting poor, defensless girls in the hall way?”

“You are anything but defenseless,” he shook his head as if the very idea was rediculous and he was dismissing it. “And is speaking with me so bothersome that you consider it torment?”

Look Like a Lush, Talk Like A Tease

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve been living in Chicago for just under a month now. There have been plenty of times where I have felt like sitting down and writing. To work through my emotions, to fill a boredom, to expand creativity. I wanted to share my wisdom of the moment with all of you, but alas it certainly appeared that whenever I felt like writing for you I was out of an element that would allow my to leave my thoughts for your pondering. There were moments that I did go so far as to hand write in my journals. Now many feel that handwriting is a dying art, and it is. I HATE it. If you had to stare at my penmanship that long, you would too. Typing is so much neater, and easier to fix. I was almost to the point that I would have enjoyed a typewriter. (Actually, I frequently prefer typewriters to word processors. Your mistakes are never gone without some amount of evidence.) Hopefully soon, I will be in possession of a shiny new macbook. Then I am sure you will be hearing from me much more.

Now the reason I cannot grace you with my wisdom of yore, is because my opinions are quickly shifting. For a while I was caught up on a song lyric from The Maine that had me thinking for a while at how many misconceptions there are between genders.

“Girls do what they want, boys do what they can.” – ‘Girls Do What They Want’ - The Maine

This idea has also been reinforced to me by more than one of the male gender of our species telling me that girls have it so easy. I am assuming I missed that day in “How to be a girl” school. You know, they day they taught us that you can apparently flirt your way to anything you want because you have boobies. Even the way you supposedly don’t even need to flirt, just be there and I have heard I am supposed to have it so much easier than any guy in there. Now this has also been reinforced by the fact that one of my closest friends here has been on a mission to flirt her way to a discount in a comic book store. Now I don’t doubt that she will be near successful in this endeavor, and maybe I’ll just need to watch closely and pick up some pointers. I don’t know what it is that I must be doing wrong, because every time I’ve walked into a bar, a store, a club, a party, anywhere, I have needed to go way out of my comfort zone to even get people to talk to me. And, unlike a very small percentage of girls I know, I cannot walk into a bar and walk out with a phone number and a potential date. So, unless I am doing something wrong and my observations are entirely off, I think it is this small percentage of sirens giving everyone the wrong impression on how hard it is to put yourself out there.

My advice to all of you, don’t be afraid to approach someone, the worst they can do is reject you before they know you, and in that case are they worth getting to know anyway? I truly believe that so many times, we are all too afraid to approach, so sometimes it is facing those fears and stepping out there you never know what might happen.

And here I was not going discuss this with you all. I guess it was still much more on my mind than I realized. Now onto a point I was intending to make today.

Something I have noticed lately is how much attitude can make a difference. Now only my attitude is in my grasp. I can dictate how I feel, and that is it. If you are going to be in a bad mood, there is little I can do to change that if you don’t want it changed. But I do think that there is a communicable property of a smile. And I bet there is evidence somewhere to proving that even making the effort to smile actually does make you feel better. So I am issuing a challenge. Smile at strangers. Now do so with discretion. Not that everyone doesn’t deserve a smile; it is just the interpretation that might be problematic. Don’t go smiling at the shady looking folk lurking at night. Don’t be afraid to smile at the people you are passing on the street, or the ones waiting for the train with you. It will make them feel better, and in response, you’ll feel better. It’s crazy how that works. Who knows, you may even be the highlight of their day.

See if you can’t make three people smile today, and make it five tomorrow. You’ll feel better, they’ll feel better, and maybe it will spread even farther.

Song of the moment: No News Is Good News - New Found Glory [lyrics]
[I really get the feel from this song that sometimes, in a world and society that is flooding us with everything that is turning out wrong in the world, we should take the time to step away and live our own lives, because ultimately, that is all we can do if we want anything to happen.]