I dreamed a dream..

This is a picture of my typewriter, I took and edited the picture. I seriously love my typewriter. I love the smell of it, the look of it, the feel of it. I love the way the sunlight bounces off of it in the morning.

No, this is not a love poem about my typewriter. I bought it for $5 at an auction once.

Best money ever spent.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a writer.
I always had quite the imagination and I would just write down all of these stories into my diaries and journals. I had a LOT of those, let me tell you. I've been finding old diaries everywhere. I hoard them, sort of like a squirrel does with nuts.

I remember writing a story for my best friend in high school. I called it her soap opera. It was about her, her boyfriend, me, the guy I had a crush on, our other friend, and her crush. It was fantastic. It was funny, witty, and had a good plot. I just wish I could find it. I didn't have my computer back then, otherwise I know I would still have it. I never delete anything. God, that was amazing.

I used to write poems too. Except I lost most of those. One of my favorites was called "Clouds." I wrote it when I was 12 and I was in our big Astro Van, laying on the seat and looking out the window. I had always been in awe of clouds and that poem just sort of came to me. I remember it started out like this: "big and fluffy, high and small, black and mean, I like them all."
But that's all I can remember and it makes me mad.

Unfortunately, I lost my confidence over the years and now I just don't think I could make it was a writer. I've been out of practice for awhile, ever since I came to college, actually. This is supposed to be the place we pursue our dreams, and instead I gave up on mine. I wanted to major in English and Creative Writing, but that went out the window when I realized I actually wanted to make money.

I read so many books and I think to myself, I could do that. Seriously, I could. I've got talent, right? Then I put the book back down. I'm just some small town Iowa girl who comes from a lower middle class family. I can't do that.

Damn it.

See what I mean? I lose all faith in myself. Well, the other day I was coming home from work. It was a really nice day out, not humid, I'd sad around 80 degrees. The sun was shining, the wind was calm. There were a few puffs of clouds in the bright blue sky. Seriously, perfect.

I had my windows open when I heard the sound of a lawn mower. Then this weird dialogue came into my head, a little narration if you will. I wrote it down as soon as I got home. I didn't know what to make of it.

I never knew how much I missed the smell of fresh cut grass until I came back to town. As I drove by a familiar pink house, the smell wafted in through my open window and brought back memories of hot summer days.

 I didn't think I'd ever come back to this town, and yet here I am, driving down mainstreet like I hadn't been gone for fifteen years.

What the hell is that? I didn't know either. I pulled out my little book (ha, not THAT little black book. No one has those anymore, it's called a cellphone) and started writing more.

The town I grew up in hadn't changed much since I'd been gone. Two old men were sitting on a bench wearing overalls and trucker hats. I'm almost positive they were talking about their corn yield. The 99 cent movie theatre had expanded; it finally had two screens. I heard the library had burnt down and in it's place, the mayor had built a convenience store. How depressing was that?

It was still the same boring town I grew up in. Nothing for teenagers to do but drink underage and vandalize buildings. Been there, done that. What kid in town hadn't? Thinking about that brought up memories I did not want to visit. I sped through downtown and headed for the one place I didn't want to, my parents' house.

I actually rewrote this part about three times. I just don't understand why this came to me..
I wrote out a plot synopsis. I kept changing my mind mid sentence, so a lot of it doesn't really make any sense. I just wanted to get everything and anything down before I forgot. It went about seven thousand different places. But there is one thing I'm sure of.

My main character. Her name is Andie. She's the youngest of four children. Her three older siblings are all successful and have their own families, while Andie is still trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. All of her life, she wanted to be a writer (this is not me, trust me on this one) and loved putting her thoughts into words. But in high school, Andie hung out with the wrong crowd. She was tired of never being good enough for her family and living in her siblings' shadows. She did what she could to stand out, even if that meant breaking the law. Her family stopped speaking to her. She went to a college as far away from them and that small town as she could. She never went back home after that. Andie considered herself an only child(something happened that caused this big riff). She put herself through college, getting a journalism degree. After college, she moved to a big city and lived in a crappy apartment. Jobs were hard to come by, so she pays rent by answering phones and tending a bar.. nothing to do with writing at all. She has no idea who she is or what she's going to do with her life. She secretly missed the small town life.. her big city dream is slowly going down the toilet.

I'm not sure where to go, though. Andie's mother, who is the glue that is holding the family together, gets really sick. All of her children go home to take care of her. There is a lot of animosity between the siblings and a lot of fighting goes on and a lot of lose ends get tied. That's all to be developed. I think once I start writing it, it'll all go better. But why would I write it? What's the point? There probably is no point. I'd just spend a lot of my time writing a story that no one will read. Oh well, right? Life goes on.

Maybe I'll just post it on here? No, that's probably not a good idea. Well, whatever. I'll let you know what's going on with that. I've gotten all of my characters figured out, I think. The plot needs work, and I'll probably write an outline shortly. I'm kind of excited. :-) It gives me something to do over the summer anyway. 

I just really like this poem

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

•Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated

Iowa recently instated a "No Texting While Driving" law. Pssh, whatever.

Just like the whole speeding thing. That's not going to stop people. Sure as heck isn't stoping me.

I can't help it, people text me while I'm driving and I feel like I should text that back soon.

They might think I'm ignoring them. No one likes being ignored.

The thing is, they can't pull over for suspicion of texting. They pull you over for something stupid, like not stopping for 3 seconds at a stop sign. Then they give you a fine for texting too. It's like.. $1000. Ridiculous.

I'm still doing it. It's my little way of 'sticking it to the man.' Or more to just Chet Culver. Whichever.

My dad got a letter in the mail on Wednesday, from his little brother. Oh dear, what is it with this family and letters?

Okay, so there's a story behind this.

My aunt died when I was about 5. I remember being extremely sad because she was my favorite aunt. She died of liver cancer. She drank a lot.

Anyway, so awhile after her death, our family got into a fight. One of my cousins told me (keep in mind I'm a little kid and I have no idea what's going on) that someday I was going to grow up and be a whore. He was a lot older than I was and he was really mean to me.

My dad yelled at him. Who wouldn't? I mean really, who says that to a little kid?

Then my grandma yelled at him. Everyone got mad at my family because we yelled at my cousin. Keep in mind his mom had just died a few months ago. Still, he shouldn't have said what he said.

So there was a rift in my family for a long time. Shortly after the incident happened, my grandmother wrote a very nasty letter to my family about what happened. We no longer talked my grandparents or my uncle/cousins (the one that yelled at me).

We didn't talk to them for a long time. We never went to another Christmas, Thanksgiving, or birthday. Obviously, this caused a huge uproar with my other uncle (the one that wrote the letter in the beginning of the story) but he still talked to us.

Then my brother graduated from high school. That same uncle ^ wrote my brother a very nasty letter explaining why he wouldn't come to his graduation (I don't remember what it was about, something about his job - McDonalds - and my aunt was his manager.. idk). So we lost contact with that uncle. That's two uncles and my grandparents that we no longer talked to. That left one uncle (aunt, and cousins) and an aunt left in that family.

My family recently (well,within 7 years anyway) made up with my grandparents. It's weird, talking to them again. They missed a lot of my childhood, so it's hard to consider them my grandparents. I always told my friends I only had one set of grandparents, my mom's parents. The other, well we just didn't talk to them.

But now I had them back. I'm still not extremely comfortable with my grandma, but whatever. Life goes on.

We hadn't talked to my uncle since he wrote that letter.

So Wednesday my dad got a letter out of the blue.. apologizing to him. I was in shock. I haven't spoken to him in.. 9 years? All of a sudden, bam.. here's a letter. He said that his life has been really bad since my aunt died 17 years ago. He thinks it because he's not following God's plan. A pastor told him that good Christian's don't hold grudges, and that brothers aren't supposed to argue.

(side note: this uncle had done something bad to the only uncle I talk to, causing a rift between them too. So he had no brothers)

So he wrote a letter to each brother, apologizing to them.

My mom is for accepting his apology. My dad, not so much. That's the stubborn side in him.

I'm not sure how I feel.

What he said (I think) in that letter was mean. He had no right. And why now? It's been almost 10 years. He said that it would be nice to be a family again.

A) I haven't seen those cousins (and the ones that yelled at me all those years ago) for almost 15 years. I have no interest in getting to know them. I personally don't care about them. They're not my family, not really.

B) Whatever. I just don't care. It would be nice to be able to get together sometimes, but seriously. They haven't been apart of our lives for a long time. It would be weird to just let everything go and pretend it's all good again.

One of my biggest thoughts is that none of this would have happened if my aunt was still alive. Dawn Krueger was the coolest person I had ever met. She let me do whatever. We would all go camping and canoeing together. God, we had fun back then.

But then she died. And we never really got over it. When something is wrong, or you're feeling sad, the thing to do in this family is to ignore it. We don't talk about that kind of stuff. We're supposed to be tough, not talk about our feelings. All of us are like that. 

I'm trying to change, but it's hard. I've never told anyone how much it hurt to see my favorite aunt, the woman I looked up to, lie in that casket. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to face in my 22 years of life. That's a hard thing to deal with for a 5 year old. 

I just wonder what life would be like if she hadn't have died. I'm sure we'd all still be talking. I would got to grow up with all of my cousins, not just a few..

Anyway... sorry about that. I didn't mean to tell the whole story, but I guess I did. It's all out there now. Whatever. 

Subject change:  

It's Sumner Days this weekend, whoopdi. Seriously, everyone makes a big deal out of it. It's really not that exciting. I just go for the food, to get a tan, and the fireworks. That's about it.

My roommate is coming up to spend Saturday at SD. That should make things better. She's never been to a "small town little festival" before. Well, this one is kind of boring. Oh well, we'll make a good time of it.

Anyway.. that's what's on my mind today. Family issues. And the law. And small town-ness.

Sorry for just laying everything out there, but I felt like writing it down. I type a whole lot faster than I can write too.

 

RIP Captain Phil

I started watching the Deadliest Catch it's first season. I remember flipping through channels looking for something to watch. I passed the Discovery Channel and I heard "I'm a cowboy. On a steal horse I ride.." and I had to watch what was gonig on because I loved that song. (I was going through a Bon Jovi phase.. don't judge)

The weird thing was that it was about crab fishing in Alaska. I have always had this odd fasination with Alaska, so I had to keep watching. And it was interesting. Watching these men do the most dangerous job in the world. It was so cool. My teenage brain looked for really hot guys, unfortunately not finding one. They're not the most handsome of men, but they worked hard and I really like all of the. One in particular was the captain of the Cornelia Marie, Phil Harris. I liked the way he was so honest and so aggressive. He was an amazing fisherman and he was a good captain. I could tell that just by watching two episodes.

Five years later and I'm still hooked (ha, get it? fishing.. hooked.. whatever). I got my parents and my sister watching it (along with Ghost Hunters, I just have awesome taste) and some of my friends too. Over the years, I really grew attached to those rough and rugged men on those crab boats in Alaska. I followed them on Twitter, read their blogs. I felt as if I knew them, you know? That probably sounds really lame, but it's true. I watched every new show. I couldn't afford to buy the seasons, but Discovery ran enough reruns that I probably watched each episode several times.

In January, I learned from CorneliaMarie.com that Phil Harris had a stroke. I was devastated. I couldn't believe it. My favorite captain, the one who has concured health problems in the past, had experienced something extremely serious. I immediately called my mom and she worried right along with me.

I constantly checked the websites every day, looking for any sort of update on Phil's condition. Then that fateful day in February, I learned that Phil Harris had passed away. I couldn't believe it. I didn't cry. I called my mom again and she was shocked. Phil was getting better, how could this have happened? I told her I didn't know and that I was really sad too. I couldn't talk to loudly though, or cry, because I was in the library.

I got back to my room and immediately turned on the Discovery Channel. There at the bottom, scrolling along with screen, was the announcement that Phil Harris had passed away due to complications of a stroke. I couldn't believe it.

The past couple episodes of Deadliest Catch have been so sad. I don't think I've ever cried that much while watching a TV show before. We watched the crew of the Cornelia Marie discover Phil in his room, suffering from a stroke. We were there when was taken to the hospital, with Jake (his son) along with him. Josh (his oldest son) stayed on the boat. He thought that's what his father wanted. I seriously was bawling the whole time. I didn't know if I could keep watching this show right then, I was so sad. The worst part (until last night's episode) for me was when Josh had to inform the rest of the fleet of Phil's stroke. Those guys are all such good friends. It hit them hard. I've never seen Sig Hansen (captain of the Northwestern) show such emotion, throwing his walkie talkie thingy into his desk.

We were there when Phil had half of his skull removed to relieve pressure. We watched Jake fall apart, getting drunk and yelling at his brother. We watched Jonathan Hillstrand (c0-captain of the Time Bandit, my second fav boat) console his good friend's boys and talk sense into them. Last night's episode was so sad. We watched Jake admit himself into rehab. One of the saddest parts was when Phil told Josh he hadn't been a very good father. While I write this, I'm almost tearing up thinking about.

The episode ended with Phil's death. After the Catch with Mike Rowe (I happen to have a very large crush on that man) was dedicated to Phil. Keith, Sig, Andy, Jonathan, Jake, and Josh gathered around that table and just talked about Phil. I think that made me cry more than the Deadliest Catch episode. Listening to them share their stories of the man I've watched on TV for 5 years was awesome.

I know this kind of sounds lame and I'm sorry. But Deadliest Catch is my favorite show on TV (next to Glee anyway) and Phil Harris was my favorite captain on my favorite boat. I loved watching him captain the Cornelia Marie, loved watching him teach his boys how to be great fishermen, and men in general. I'm currently looking for Cornelia Marie t-shirts for me and my mom.

Next week's episode will be sad also. Watching the guys learn the news of Phil's death might actually be harder than watching Phil die. I'm glad we weren't there for that.

Watching other people cry makes me sad, and these guys are not cries. To see them break down might make me break down.

I'll need a box of tissues and something to cuddle next week.